CATZ True Agenda
by Hitotsune-Kozo
Summary: The asked for sequel to the one-shot 'C.A.T.Z. - The Beginning.' In this story, C.A.T.Z. has been together for a year, and is now after the most dangerous man in the world: Carter Roulet, a.k.a. Red X and who knows what else . Rated M for violence, bloodshed, language, nudity, and maybe a couple of other things. Original characters are the main ones.
1. Chapter 1

**DISCLAIMER:** DC Comics is not owned by me. Any canon characters used in this story are the property of DC Comics. This story is mainly about original characters, though it occurs in the DC universe - specifically, within the universe established by DantesClover in **Hidden Agenda** (read it, y'all).

**Author's Note:** The characters Morana, Echo, Zero, Nano, Sta, Tic (pronounced "tech"), and StaTec (the fused form of Sta and Tic) are the propety of me, of course. As is their group, Covert Action Team Zeta (C.A.T.Z.). The characters Dr. Celia Williams and Carter Roulet are the property of DantesClover, and are used with his permission. If you want to know about those two characters, check out his stories **Hidden Agenda** and **Against the World**.

**C.A.T.Z.**

**True Agenda**

**Chapter 1 - Hunting Death**

_"We've finished analyzing the data," a scientists says. He and his partner are standing outside of a glass-walled room, reporting to their superior._

_"The results?" the woman asks, pushing her glasses back up on her nose._

_"All green, Doctor," the other subordinate says. "Except for her mental state."_

_"That was expected, considering the inconsistancies within her gestation matrix."_

_"It has had some unexpected benefits with the combat training, though," the first subordinate says._

_"True, but while it has provided us with invaluable data, such an imbalance is highly impractical for production. How much data has been gathered?"_

_"We have sufficient amount to go to Phase Two, Doctor."_

_"Good. Then terminate Project Morana. It's usefulness is at an end."_

_There was a crack, the kind of cracking sound that only glass can make - right before it shatters. All three of the scientists snap their heads to stare at the glass room. The glass room where Project Morana was currently residing. They stared in horror at the exponentially expanding crack in the wall of the glass room. Their horror grew as they watched Morana casually pick up the fork from her unretrieved meal tray._

_"Run!" one of them shouted, right as she telekinetically slammed the fork _through_ the glass - and into the forehead of the scientist that had ordered her 'termination.' The woman was dead before she hit the ground, her two subordinates fleeing the massive warehouse-like room Project Morana's glass room was sitting in. An alarm had begun sounding as soon as the glass wall - and shortly thereafter, the room - began breaking apart. Shielding herself from the glass with power, Morana casually stepped over to the corpse and nudged it. Her eyes flickered from a dark gray to a poisionous green several times before settling into the poison green shade. She looked around the massive room where she had always been forced to train and kill, her mind cataloging the details - including the multiple doors, some of which were opening to admit the facility's highly-trained, commando-like security force. Seeing what she was looking for, she unhurriedly walked to a section of the floor that seemed indistinguishable from the rest._

_"You have ten seconds to get to the floor, or we open fire," one of the soldiers shouted, the sound of multiple rifle safeties clikcing off punctuating the order. Morana stopped, but only because she was where she wanted to be. Crouching into a kneeling position, she placed both of her hands on the floor before her as twenty of the commandos closed in. Pushing down, both physically and telekinetically, Morana felt the plate give - and slide away until it was underneath the floor plate to her left. The soldiers, of course, had heard the action and knew what it meant, but it was too late for anything but one of them to say, "Oh, shit."_

_Swords whirled into the air, controlled by Morana's natural (but artificially enhanced) telekinesis. The twenty commandos around her had fountains of blood explode from them as the extraordinarily sharp blades sliced through their bodies, severing limbs, arteries, and heads. The other commandos surrounding her, nearly a hundred now with more coming in, opened fire on her, but the swords moved blindingly fast, slicing into the bullets as they need her. Wha the swords missed her instinctive telekinetic shield stopped. Two of the swords - a katana and a talwar with a Wultz blade - floated gently into her hands while the others floated around her, a steel cage of deadly protection. The soldiers tried to concentrate their fire on one spot as a distraction for their comrades to take her down, but to no avail; those who tried to rush and kill her at close range had her katana and talwar erupt _through_ their ribcages - in one case exploding the heart out of the blade's entry side._

_Heavy 6-inch-thick steel doors slammed down across the room's entrances, sealing everyone inside._

_"I will bathe in your blood," Morana spoke softly, her swords whirling ever faster._

_After nearly half an hour, she stood alone in a room whose floor was awash with blood an corpses. Her five 'floating' blades orbited around her slowly and lazily, and the katana and talwar rested loosely in her hands. Her naked, hairless, and scarred body was drenched in blood as well. She walked over to a sealed door and cocked her head to the left slightly, staring at it._

_"You can't get out of there," a voice echoed from loudspeakers built into the room's ceiling - forty feet above her head._

_"I'm not going to die," Morana replied. "I _am_ death. I am _Morana_."_

_"You are what we made you to be. And now we no longer need you."_

_"You will die," she stated. As far as she was concerned, it was a fact. The owner of that voice would die, so she would kill her. Turning around, her blades whirling ever faster around her, she rushed to the opposite wall. She used her telekinesis to boost her speed even more than it already was. Three feet from the wall, she jumped at it and continued running - only now the wall was a floor and the floor a wall. With a scream of rage, she pushed off from the wall, flinging a sword - this one a wakizashi - into a wall panel - which turned out to be a two-way mirror that shattered under the blade's assault. Telekinetically grabbing a person in the room, she yanked them out while yanking herself forward. Someone in the room shot at her; she was caught off guard, so the bullet went through her left bicep. Landing in the room, she felt the pain from the wound and looked at her arm. The sight of the blood running down the bare limb made her eyes widen, and their color begin flickering. But, rather than go from gray to poison green and back, this time they went from poison green - to blood-red. Her whole body began shaking as her eyes began staying blood-red. Looking up at the screaming people in the room, she loosed a scream of her own. A scream of pure rage, of fury unleashed. Then she leapt foward, blades flashing in a dance of death . . ._

_Residential Wing, C.A.T.Z. HQ,_

_Somewhere outside Gotham City_

With a scream to echo the one from her dream, Morana sat bolt upright in her bed, her swords whirling into the air around her. Panting, her naked body and bedsheets drenched in a cold sweat, the scarred, now short-haired young woman slowly came out of the nightmare, her eyes flicking through poison green, blood red, and multiple shades of gray. Her eyes slowly settled into a pale gray as she calmed down, her swords slowly drifting back to their resting places around her room. Still breathing a little hard, she got out of bed and staggered to her in-suite bathroom. Going to the sink, she turned on the cold water and splashed her face with it, trying to wash away the remnants of the dream. Or, to be accurate, the memory.

"Damnit," she whispered, leaning her forehead against the mirror. "Motherfuckin' past." Then she heard a knock at her door. Turning off the water, she grabbed a towel from the rack behind her and wrapped it around herself. Walking out of the bathroom, she called out, "Come in, Nano."

The door opened, and a woman with metallic navy blue hair and metallic dark gray 'skin' poked her head in.

"Are you okay, Mora?" the cyber-sentient asked, coming in and shutting door. "I heard you scream."

"As did everyone else here, I'm sure," she muttered.

"Be that as it may," Nano said, "no one else would come in here to check on you, since they all know the source of your nightmares."

"We lived together for about a year before Mom brought us - and the others - here," Morana reminded her. "You know my past, too."

"And it's _because_ of that time we spent before Covert Action Team Zeta that I come in here to be with you," she replied. "It's what I did then, it's what I am doing now, and it's what I shall continue to do."

"But why, Nan? Why waste your time on a monster like me?"

"Because you're no more a monster than I am," her friend said firmly. "I know what was done to you before, even though I don't know what you went through. I care for you, Morana, even if I am as yet uncertain as to what my feelings are."

"I know, Nano," Morana replied, grabbing the other woman's hand and squeezing it. "I'm not sure of my own feelings - about anything."

"All in good time," the androidic woman told her. She reached out and grasped her friend's other hand. "Would you like me stay with you while you sleep?"

"More than anything," she replied. "But I don't want to bother you."

"You are my friend, my battle-sister," Nano said. "You could never bother me."

And until the sun rose a few hours later, Morana slept without dreams, feeling safe in Nano's embrace.

_Main Conference Room, C.A.T.Z. HQ_

_0800 hours_

"Anybody know what's going on?" Zero asked as she sat down in a chair around the large table in the conference room of Covert Action Team Zeta's headquarters. Echo, the team's unofficial but unanimously chose leader, shook her head.

"Sorry, Zee," she said. "I got the same message the rest of you did, to report to the main briefing room around oh-eight-hundred."

"What about you, Lady Death?" the sniper assassin asked Morana, who was sitting across from her. The snow white and blood red-haired woman shook her head.

"Mom didn't tell me anything, either," she replied. Out of the six (five, if Sta and Tic fused together into StaTic) young women that made up C.A.T.Z., she was the only one who called Doctor Celia Williams 'mom;' the aging woman had been there for Morana almost from the instant she thawed out from a forty-year cryogenic hibernation.

"I doubt it's a party," the ever gloomy Tic replied from one side of Zero.

"A party would be great!" the ever bubbly Sta said from Zero's other side; after the incident in South Africa three months ago, the other girls had learned to keep the twins near each other but not close to each other.

"I'm sure it would, dear, but I'm afraid the situation is very dire," Dr. Williams said, walking into the room. "Sorry I'm late, girls. I had to make sure I got all of the information I needed."

"What's going on, Doctor?" Echo asked.

"It can't be good, if you called a meeting this early," Nano noted.

"That is an understatement, Nano," she said. "All of you will recall that, a little over a year ago when I first brought all of you together, I told you about an escaped criminal that was extremely dangerous."

"You did," Echo confirmed. "You also said that he vanished shortly after escaping whatever ultra-maxiumum security facility he was imprisioned in."

"That is true, Echo."

"That you bring it up now suggests the situation has changed, Mom," Morana replied.

"It has," Dr. Williams agreed. "One week ago, a Jump City mayoral candidate was found dead in his home. The cause of death was a single bullet wound just behind the temple."

"A perfect kill," Zero said approvingly. "Not an easy shot to make precisely."

"Correct, Zero. There are, at most, four assassins in the world capable of executing such a shot. You are one. Of the remaining three, one is in an injury-induced coma in a Moroccan hospital, and another is in a Swedish prision."

"So who's the fourth?" Echo asked.

"Carter Roulet."

Carter yawned as he walked into his apartment. Shutting the door behind him, he reached out to flick the light switch, only to have it spark and snap, with a thin wisp of smoke rising from it. "Damn," he muttered. "I thought Mark said he was going to fix this today." Grumbling under his breath, he tenderly made his way to the kitchen - where he found an overflowing trash can. "And I see Jack took out the trash, too." Flicking on the kitchen light for the small (and uninhabited except for him) apartment, he pulled out a mostly gone loaf of bread from a cabinet, a package of meat from the fridge, and a bottle of tabasco sauce from behind the microwave.

"Damn Janet," he growled. "Always hiding my sauce. That reminds me." Turning around, he reached under the kitchen sink and pulled an empty bottle of Scottish double-malt whiskey. "Fuck. I'm gonna kill Robert." He headed back to the living room. "I fuckin' _am_ gonna kill 'im, Judith; just watch me." Sitting down on his rather worn and patched couch, he began eating his sandwich - although he _did_ remember to take the meat _out_ of the package this time. All around the apartment were enough guns, ammo boxes, and knives to outfit a small army - or one rather talented killer. Reaching down between the couch cushions, he pulled out a bottle of Russian vodka whose proof number was high enough to allow it to double as an anesthetic during major surgery. "At least Paul didn't get this one; _no one_ touches my drink," he grumbled.

Nano sat down in the pilot's seat of the heavily modified private jet that was C.A.T.Z.'s method of travel, with Zero settling into the co-pilot's seat. The other four girls buckled themselves into the four seats just behind the cockpit; the rest of the jet's interior was filled with the advanced equipment that would allow the jet to disappear electronically - as well as allow the team to hack into any secure network in the world. The take-off was fast but routine, and the jet rose vertically into the sky until it was just one story above ground level. The engine nacelles rotated ninety degrees, and the forward-swept-wing jet rocketed into the night sky on a direct course to Jump City.

Meanwhile, a black-suited figure wearing a skull-like mask leaped from rooftop to rooftap, moving as though absolutely certain each step would land perfectly - which they did. Tonight, the figure had a mission to do, a job that would pay rather well. Which would be a big change from the last year. _And a step forward_, Red X thought grimly.

**End Note:** And there it is. The first chapter of the asked-for C.A.T.Z. story. I'll warn y'all now; this isn't going to be a long story. But I hope you like it. Please review.


	2. Chapter 2

**DISCLAIMER:** DC Comics is not owned by me. Any canon characters used in this story are the property of DC Comics. This story is mainly about original characters, though it occurs in the DC universe - specifically, within the universe established by DantesClover in **Hidden Agenda** (read it, y'all).

**Author's Note:** The characters Morana, Echo, Zero, Nano, Sta, Tic (pronounced "tech"), and StaTec (the fused form of Sta and Tic) are the propety of me, of course. As is their group, Covert Action Team Zeta (C.A.T.Z.). The characters Dr. Celia Williams and Carter Roulet are the property of DantesClover, and are used with his permission. If you want to know about those two characters, check out his stories **Hidden Agenda** and **Against the World**.

**C.A.T.Z.**

**True Agenda**

**Chapter 2 - The Grim Reaper and the Goddess of Death**

Nano landed the jet far into the area surrounding Jump City; it wouldn't do for it to be found - by anyone, but especially the target. It was just around noon when the girls of Covert Action Team Zeta had landed, and by the time they made it to Jump City it was three in the afternoon. They could've gotten there in half an hour or less, but secrecy and stealth - not to mention an unhealthy dose of paranoia - made them alter their pacing, change direction countless times, and head to the side of Jump City opposite where they landed their plane.

Once in Jump City, the girls paired off and split up: Sta and Tic, of course, stuck together (but refrained from physical contact); Echo and Zero paired off (it seemed natural, considering Zero's penchant for long-range killing and Echo's 'up-close-and-personal style); which left Morana and Nano to pair off. The two of them had always been close, looking out for one another. The information they had indicated only that Roulet was in the city; they didn't know precisely where, nor did they even have a general location.

"So where would you hide if you were him?" Nano asked as they walked along a street. They did get some strange looks, but nobody seemed alarmed.

"That would be difficult to figure out for a number of reasons," Morana replied. "Mom didn't really give us much to go on with him."

"I could access the city's computer networks and determine and recent purchases since his disapperance after that battle in Washington, DC," Nano offered.

"I doubt it would show anything immediately after."

"You're just a fountain of optimism, aren't you?"

"It'll just be pointless, Nano. Tracing him through that many records would take too long."

"So what would _you_ suggest?"

"Look, I don't want to make you mad, okay? But he wouldn't leave a trail like that. Why don't we just walk around, see what we see, and get something to eat?"

"That's your plan, then?"

"Yep." Nano was silent for a while as they walked along.

"So where's a good place to eat here?"

After hours of searching, with check-ins every half hour or so, C.A.T.Z. had turned up no sign of Carter Roulet. Morana, though, felt certain that he was in the city; she was getting a feeling that someone just as lethal, just as blood-thirsty as she, was nearby. When she'd told Nano, the sentient machine girl had likened to a 'killer instinct' thing, saying that perhaps since the two were so close in purpose and all that maybe they could some kind 'vibe' from each other. Zero had agreed, though Echo thought Morana was just eager to spill some blood. As the sun began to sink below the horizon, Echo suggested that some of them head back to the jet to monitor law enforcement and military frequencies for any unexplainable discrepencies - or massive amounts of dead bodies. Nano, Sta, and Tic elected to go back to the jet, leaving Echo, Zero, and Morana to search the city during the night.

Morana was actually thankful to be alone; though she enjoyed Nano's company, the alien robot girl was just unable to really understand her. It wasn't her fault, though; only someone who had lived the same kind of life she had would truly understand. _Maybe Roulet would understand_, she thought. _After all, from what Mom said, he and are almost the same._ Sighing, she stuffed her hands into her pockets and continued walking around the city, automatically tracking and evaluating everyone and everything she saw. At first, nothing seemed amiss. But, slowly, a sensation began intruding upon her consciousness. Almost without realizing it, she began heading to where her instincts seemed to be leading her. _He's around here_, she realized. She had no idea where in Jump City she was now, but night had completely fallen and she was in a low-cost area of the city. And that same sensation was very strong now.

She'd just walked past a convienence store when a bell signaled its door opening. Turning to see who was leaving, her eyes met those of the young man who had just walked out. He had just lit a cigarette that he'd pulled out of a pack that was now going into a jacket pocket. When their eyes locked, there was a moment of recognition. Not of them personally knowing each other, but one of two remorseless killers acknowledging each other. Then his facial features clicked into place in Morana's mind. It must have showed on her face, because Roulet sighed and took his cigarette out.

"Well, shit," they both said simultaneously. Morana didn't hesitate; she whipped around in a high round-house kick at Roulet's head that he ducked under - to find her fist landing in his gut. She caught the cigarette as he easily kept to his feet and took a drag. A look of disgust crossed her face.

"People actually smoke this shit?" she asked, tossing it aside. "Asshole, you should've bought a better brand."

"Maybe," he said, coughing slightly, "you should buy some bigger boobs."

"You just fucked yourself up," Morana told him, coming at him in a lethal stance, her punches flying fast and hard. Roulete blocked them, his speed the equal of hers. They managed to fight their way, exchanging kicks and punches, into an alley. Carter leaped up onto a fire escape and began running up it, Morana right behind him. He made it to the roof ahead of her - and found her swinging onto the roof three feet from her.

"How the fuck did you do that?" he asked.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she retorted, coming in again at him. He couldn't find a fixed point to her attacks, a solid set of techniques he could recognize. Which was when it occured to him that she was using a style like his. Hers was different, focused on attacks and movement, as easy to grab as the wind; his used attacks and blocks that were interchangable (in fact, the attacks were blocks and the blocks were attacks; there was no difference between the two).

"Just what are you?"

"I'm Morana," she replied. "That's what I am, that's who I am." She threw a punch that would definitely have broken a bone had he not countered her punch with one of his own. The sound of their two fists meeting was like the crack of an unsilenced sniper rifle. Each had pulled their punch at the last second to lessen the force of the impact. As their arms drew back, Morana dropped to the rooftop into a rising vertical spin kick that Roulet flipped away from. Pushing herself off with her hands, she sprang at him as soon as her feet touched the concrete. Right then, her dark gray eyes flashed to a poison green. Thrown off by the change, as well as the cold, lethal beauty it gave her face, Carter was unable to fully block the punch that came sailing at him. He blocked her hand well enough; it was the burst of telekinetic energy _with_ the punch that knocked him backward.

"What the hell?!" he said, confused.

"What's the matter, pretty boy?" Morana practically purred, walking towards him slowly. Her body was loose, but he could see the readiness to action in the way she carried herself, how she walked on the balls of her feet. "Afraid of a little 'phantom' pain?"

"Oh, hell no," he said, returning the same sinister grin she was wearing. He rolled his shoulders, then popped his neck. "I just realized that I forgot to bring some beer to this party."

"Then let's get this party started," she growled, coming at him in a sweeping hook kick. He ducked under it, then had to roll to one sword to avoid the feet she nearly slammed into his head. He fired a series of punches at her that she just weaved and slid around. _It really _is_ like fighting the wind_, he thought. But while he was unable to land a hit on her, she was having the same trouble with him. They both realized, at the same time, that they were evenly matched. Two lethal weapons, forged for killing; unstoppable force meeting impenetrable defense. Her telekinesis gave her an edge, but it was countered by his rapid healing ability. Morana flipped over his head, aiming a series of punches at him; he ducked, and sent a kick at where she should have landed. A mid-air twist right before she landed had the kick flying less than an inch from her abdomen. She followed through the twist, lowering herself to the ground to use a sweeping kick against his standing leg. He countered by going with the direction he was leaning and flipped onto his hands. Flipping again, he managed to put some distance between them.

Right as Morana's earpiece crackled. _"Morana, report,"_ came Echo's voice. That split-second distraction (actually, it was less than a split-second) gave Roulet enough time to activate his teleporter belt and he vanished from the rooftop, leaving Morana cursing in four langauges with Echo, several dozen blocks distant, holding _her_ earpiece as far from her as she could.

**Author's Note:** The second chapter is _finally_ up. So sorry for the long delay; I just lost the muse for this thing, though reading **Bone, Luck, and X** by 'heartofwind' fired my creativity back up. If none of you _reviewers_ have read that yet, I suggest you do; it's based within the same AU created by 'Dantesclover' and also features Carter Roulet. Trust me, it's a good story.


	3. Chapter 3

**DISCLAIMER:** DC Comics is not owned by me. Any canon characters used in this story are the property of DC Comics. This story is mainly about original characters, though it occurs in the DC universe - specifically, within the universe established by DantesClover in **Hidden Agenda** (read it, y'all).

**Author's Note:** The characters Morana, Echo, Zero, Nano, Sta, Tic (pronounced "tech"), and StaTec (the fused form of Sta and Tic) are the propety of me, of course. As is their group, Covert Action Team Zeta (C.A.T.Z.). The characters Dr. Celia Williams and Carter Roulet are the property of DantesClover, and are used with his permission. If you want to know about those two characters, check out his stories **Hidden Agenda** and **Against the World**. You should also check out **Bone, Luck, and X** by heartofwind. Pretty good story.

**C.A.T.Z.**

**True Agenda**

**Chapter 3 - Lady Death Deceived**

After her anger was spent, Morana touched her earpiece and said, "Echo, you there?"

"What the hell was _that_ all about?" the leader of C.A.T.Z. demanded.

"Well, I was busy engaging our target when you decided you just _had_ to call," the other girl replied.

"What?! You found Roulet?!"

"Isn't that what I said?"

"Why didn't you call it in?"

"Um, let's see. I just _ran_ into him without warning, then was _chasing_ him, followed by a _fight_ with someone who was my _fucking_ equal," Morana pointed out. "Now just _where_ in all of that did I have a chance to call in to _anyone_?"

"Okay, okay," Echo replied, taken aback by her vehemence. "You made your point. Let's head back to the jet and work out a plan."

"You go on ahead. I'm just gonna hang around out here."

"We need to get back to the jet, Morana."

"_Don't_ take that tone of voice with me, Echo," she warned. "You may be the team leader, but that doesn't make you the boss. I'm going to stay in town and wander around. Lady Death out." With that, she cut the comm channel and took her earpiece out. While she thought about just throwing it away, she ended up slipping it into her pocket. Jamming both hands into her pockets, she turned away from where she'd been facing and walked down the street. She wasn't depressed, but she was in a little bit of shock. Until now, no one had been her equal.

After the shock of sudden teleportation wore off, Roulet found himself on the roof of the building he was currently occupying. _What the fuck is going on?_ he asked himself. That girl, Morana she'd said her name was, was just as good as he was. Maybe a little better, with that telekinetic thing. At least in that fight; now that he knew about it, it wouldn't catch him by surprise too much the next time. And there _would_ be a next time, he was absolutely sure about that. She was after him, specifically, and just as obvious was the fact that she wasn't working alone. _They may be after me, but they sure as hell won't get me_, he growled in his mind. He looked around, judging the layout of the buildings in relation to where he was now, and where he had been. It wasn't that hard, in spite of the headache he was getting. He reached into a belt pouch absentmindedly and pulled out a pre-filled syringe. Taking the cap off, he jabbed it into his arm and let a sigh as the painkiller was injected directly into his bloodstream. The pain in his head began clearing, and his thinking sharpened. A feral grin pricked his features as several independent thoughts coalesced together.

"Trap time," he chuckled to himself. "In spite of what I was thinking, if they want me _that_ bad maybe I'll give them what they want. Whoever the others are, I think that Morana girl would be the biggest danger." This time he didn't bother to contain himself; he let a full-throated laugh of insane happiness.

Morana's left eye twitched slightly; it felt like someone had walked over her grave.

Meanwhile, back in the C.A.T.Z. headquarters building in Gotham City, Doctor Celia Williams sat alone in the same briefing room in which she'd given the team her instructions. She was in the chair placed at the head of the table, leaning back with her fingers steepled together in front of her face. _By now_, she thought, _Morana would've encountered Roulet. Chances are the fight would've been a stalemate._ A brief smile blossomed on her face, only to fade away short-lived. _He would've gotten away somehow, pissing her off to no end. She'll be burning to fight him again, to eliminate him. All because her 'mom' told her to._ This time, the smile was cold and empty. _The foolish bitch._ Just then, the comm unit in the room let out the double-triple tone of an incoming secure transmission. Pressing a key on the briefing table, she said, "What is it, Echo?"

_"Doctor, it's Morana,"_ Echo said. _"She ran into Carter, alone, and refuses to come in now."_

"What happened?"

_"I believe she fought him and . . . and it was a draw, from her reaction. I commed her to get a status report, and, well, I've learned some new curses."_

"I understand, dear," Dr. Williams said with false empathy. "Just leave her alone for now. She'll be fine. I did tell all of you that Roulet was a killer. Morana is one, as well. They're the only ones in their league, so finding herself in a draw with him undoubtedly shocked her."

_"I suppose. But she could have come back to the jet and just locked herself in the back."_

"Echo, it'll be fine. Perhaps the rest of you should go out and track down Roulet. I'm sure Morana will join you."

_"She's shut off her comm."_

"Nevertheless, Echo, you _will_ go track down Carter Roulet. Make Zero is set up with her customized ammunition."

_"Doctor Williams-"_ Echo started to say, before Celia shut off the comm. _Tools have no right to question their masters_, she thought with disdain.

Echo stared at the jet's comm panel, shocked and confused. Doctor Williams may have been somewhat callous and distant during the time she'd known her, but this was something different.

"There is something off with Doctor Williams," Zero said quietly.

"Correct," Nano agreed. "There was a different stress level in her voice. Her emotional state isn't as before."

"She isn't fun anymore," Sta pouted.

"She was never fun," Tic said morosely.

"I don't like this," Echo told the others. "She's never been that abrupt, or that intense before. I think there's something off about all of this."

"All of what, precisely?" Nano asked.

"This situation. Doctor Williams sure was insistent about us going after this Roulet guy. I do believe that everything she told us _about_ him was true. It's everything else I'm not sure of anymore."

"I have to agree with you," the mecha girl replied. Zero nodded and so did Sta; Tic merely shrugged. "I'll interface with the jet's control panel via the comm system, and back hack the base's computer network."

"Can you get in?"

"If I was at the base directly, then absolutely. From here, it'll be a little more difficult because of the relays involved. But I can do it."

Morana was sitting on a roof, her feet dangling over the edge, thinking aboout the fight with Roulet. She'd been doing that for quite a while now, as her watch was showing that just past midnight. She was no longer put out by what happened, meeting someone who was her equal. She hated his guts, of course, because _no one_ should have been her equal.

"Mom told me he was good," she said to herself, kicking her feet and watching the ground several stories below. "She didn't tell me, though, that he was just as good as I was. He looks more . . . recent, though. A bit of an asshole." She looked at herself. "There's nothing wrong with my boobs. I'm going to kill him." Her brow furrowed as she thought. "Mom was hiding something. I'm young, not stupid. But . . . she was there when I woke up again. Hell, she _woke_ me up after those bastards froze me." Sighing, she stood up. "Even back then, I knew there was something off about her. In her eyes . . . it was the same look I'd seen in the eyes of those who froze me, who tried to _kill_ me. They were nice to me, too, in the beginning." Looking out over Jump City's nighttime skyline, she came to a decision. "I'll found that Roulet guy again, and 'talk' to him. People can lie; but in fighting, there is always truth." Nodding, she stepped off the roof and made her way down to the street by swinging on wires and fire escapes.

"I don't believe it," Nano said, stunned. She slumped back in the chair in front of the comm panel. No one wanted to believe it, but the information she had convinced the computers to 'willingly' give up didn't lie.

"Doctor Williams has lied to us since the beginning," Echo said, just as stunned. "Just to get her revenge on Carter Roulet."

"She seems to have a valid reason for vengeance," Zero noted dispassionately. "But perhaps Carter Roulet had a valid reason for what he did, too. Williams has some explaining to do."

"She asked us to kill Roulet," Sta said, actually subdued for once.

"She _ordered_ us to kill him," Tic corrected, no different than she usually was. "We were used, for no reason than petty vengeance."

"She gave us a reason for coming together, making us believe what is, in fact, a lie," Nano said quietly, the anger evident in her voice. That actually elicited a reaction from even the usually stoic Zero: a raised eyebrow. "Morana depends on her, actually _trusts_ her." She turned around and looked at the others. "I'm the only one that Morana ever shared the details of her past with. If she finds out that Doctor Williams has lied to her from the very beginning, since they met . . . she'll kill her. Without thought, without hesitation. And she'll kill anyone and everyone who gets in her way."

"What are we talking about here?" Echo asked.

"Morana was created decades ago to be a weapon, a remorseless killer who was praised for killing, who was tested and experimented upon until she was what they needed her to be."

"Who are 'they'?" Zero asked.

"She didn't tell me," Nano replied.

"And if she was created 'decades ago,' then why is she as young as us?"

"Cryogenic freezing. What they did to her made her mentally unstable. So when she overhead them talking about eliminating her now that their research was done, she completely lost it and killed almost everyone. Eventually, she was brought down and frozen; there wasn't anything left to kill her with by then."

"So what you're saying is that for the past year or so we've been working with a murderous psychotic time bomb that could've gone off at any second?" Echo asked, stunned.

"No. I'm saying that we were working with a murderous psychotic time bomb that would only go off with certain provocations. And _this_ is exactly what could set her off."

"So if we tell her, we all get our revenge on the 'good' doctor," Zero said.

"Perhaps, but there is a possibility she could become so off that she would believe we were _all_ a part of it."

"Including you? But you're the only who is close to her."

"It was Doctor Williams that introduced us," Nano said.

"Oh. Well, fuck. So what do we do, then?"

"We finish the mission," Echo said firmly. "Only, we take Roulet alive, bring him back to Doctor Williams, and _then_ tell Morana the truth."

"You know what?" Tic said, looking at Echo with a slightly disturbing grin on her face, "I think you're more evil than she is."

**End Note:** And there it is. The third chapter. Morana, also known as Lady Death and the Goddess of Death (since Morana _is_ the name of a Slavic death goddess), has been lied to by her 'mom' since the very beginning. And the Covert Action Team Zeta was merely a tool for Doctor Celia Williams to use to get revenge on Carter Roulet. I wonder what's going to happen next? ;)


	4. Chapter 4

**DISCLAIMER:** DC Comics is not owned by me. Any canon characters used in this story are the property of DC Comics. This story is mainly about original characters, though it occurs in the DC universe - specifically, within the universe established by DantesClover in **Hidden Agenda** (read it, y'all).

**Author's Note:** The characters Morana, Echo, Zero, Nano, Sta, Tic (pronounced "tech"), and StaTic (the fused form of Sta and Tic) are the propety of me, of course. As is their group, Covert Action Team Zeta (C.A.T.Z.). The characters Dr. Celia Williams and Carter Roulet are the property of DantesClover, and are used with his permission. If you want to know about those two characters, check out his stories **Hidden Agenda** and **Against the World**. You should also check out **Bone, Luck, and X** by heartofwind. Pretty good story. It's also set within the same universe as DantesClover's two Roulet stories.

**C.A.T.Z.**

**True Agenda**

**Chapter 4 - Fallen Death**

Morana prowled the night streets of Jump City, searching. She knew, in the back of her mind, that she should probably be getting some sleep, but she didn't feel at all tired. She actually felt energized, restless, eager. She hadn't felt like this for a long time - not since that day forty years ago when DeathTech tried to kill her, or three years ago when another group made the mistake of being present when they woke her up. She had tried to move past the killing, past the desire to spill blood, but had felt a little depressed and miserable during that entire time. She knew that she had mental issues, that she was more than likely an unstable psychotic killing machine, but trying to be something different just wasn't working out. _I'm not a bad person_, she thought. _I am what I am, though. Spilling blood makes me . . . me. Makes me feel . . . whole._ And now that she'd worked past the shock of finding someone in her own league, she found herself driven to find him again. She still intended to kill him, but it wasn't his death she was seeking anymore; it was the fight. So she'd actually gone back to the jet and snuck on board. Everyone was asleep, which was just stupid, she thought; _someone_ should've been on watch in the cockpit, monitoring the displays. So she was able to sneak into the armory and remove all seven of her blades. Her arsenal was somewhat different than it had been a year ago; she had two kodachi blades in a dual sheath that rested just below her waist behind her, a katana and a wakizashi in specialized partial sheaths on her upper to mid back, a Gurkha kukri in a sheath on each thigh, and an Indian poinard in a sheath that was just to the left of her navel but canted slightly towards the right. Most would find it unwieldy to carry so many different blades, or even to carry that many sizable blades at all, but not her; she barely noticed their weight or the slight discomfort.

That had been a couple of hours ago; this time when heading to Jump City, Morana had taken a straight line, moving swiftly and silently. She'd been wandering the city's streets for an hour and a half now, hunting. Searching.

Carter Roulet stood on the third floor of the abandoned seven-story building, which was actually located towards the forest near Jump City rather than the harbor as the average person would have expected. He'd planted the various explosives he'd 'borrowed' and stolen all around the entire floor, following the maxim of 'P' for 'plenty.' _Better too many_, he thought, _than just enough_. Towards sunset of the next day (_Or would it be sunset of today?_ he asked himself), he'd do something to draw the attention of whoever was after him and lure them here. Then he'd trigger the explosives and teleport out of the building. _Perhaps that Morana girl would come, too_, he thought. _She was certainly something else. Makes me almost think about regretting that comment about her breasts._ He shrugged. She was certainly attractive enough, in spite of that - or maybe because of it - but he never forgot that she had fought him to a standstill, even as he'd done the same to her. Their fighting styles were vastly different, though they both seemed to utilize elements of similar styles (he'd noticed that she used a variety of krav maga techniques) but in very different ways. His style combined offense and defense in such a way that there was no difference between the two; the sword and the shield were one in the same. _Her_ style, on the other hand, was built solidly around attacks with little to no defense. That should have been a liability, but it wasn't. Fighting her had been like fighting the wind; he could feel her attacks, see the effects of her moves, but couldn't land a blow on her. And there was something else about her, something intangible that he couldn't place his finger on. Not too surprising, since he couldn't remember a lot anyway. As he injected himself with more liquid painkiller, he continued reflecting on Morana - which was surprising to him since he didn't do much reflecting. Roulet knew he was screwed up - he had Celia Williams to thank for that, too - but he thought that that girl might just be as screwed up as he was. She seemed both younger and older than he was, a conundrum he couldn't (and didn't want to) explain. And the way her had eyes had changed color towards the battle's end . . .

Roulet shook himself when he realized he'd been thinking about that for the past half hour. _When she comes, I'll find out what she wants. Then I'll probably kill her._

When the rest of C.A.T.Z. awoke the next day, they found that not only had Morana not come back, but that her swords were gone - which actually contradicted that first statement. She'd been back, alright, but only to collect her weapons. This actually left Nano a little sad, which made Echo think that there might be something going on between the two of them. But she left that alone, trying to figure out a few things: how Morana had gotten onboard the jet (and back off) without leaving a trace (including setting off the security systems), where Carter Roulet was hiding, and what to do now that he knew someone was after him. Suspicious though her behavior was, Echo knew that Dr. Williams was right in that Zero needed to be set up somewhere as a sniper. She knew that the other teen was a crack shot with her sniper rifle (she had seen her actually shot the wings off of a fly at over a mile), but where to put her was the question.

"I'll post on the tallest building in the city," Zero said when Echo brought up the problem with the others.

"But what if we find Roulet at a location outside of your range?" Nano asked.

"I can hit anything and anyone at any place," the girl stated matter-of-factly. "Leave the details to me."

"Well, I guess that's settled," Echo said. "Now how do find the bastard?"

"I'm sure he'll let us know," Tic replied.

"What makes you think that?"

"He knows he's being pursued now; he'll let us find him," Zero explained. "It'll undoubtedly be a trap."

"Let's walk into it! Yeah!" Sta exclaimed, clapping her hands together gleefully.

"That's actually not a bad idea," Echo said, getting a shocked "What?!" from Nano. "We walk into his trap, and have Zero pop him before he triggers it. He won't stay dead, but hopefully he'll be dead long enough for us to get him back to the jet and locked up so tight that not even Houdini could break out."

"Which might not give us too much time to keep him," Tic replied depressedly.

Doctor Williams sat back in the seat in front of the comm panel, her face flat and expressionless. The entire jet was wired with hidden receivers that transmitted everything heard back to this particular communications panel. So she knew that the girls suspected her (she didn't know that Nano had hacked her files and they knew the truth, just that they were suspicious). She sighed, not out of sadness but out of the loss of a set of tools she'd hoped to use for a bit longer. Standing up, she stretched herself a little to work out some kinks, then left the room to head back to her office within the 'secret' Failsafe facility she was currently operating from (she'd left the C.A.T.Z. building after the girls had fallen asleep). This situation would have to be dealt with now, before she had another Roulet on her hands. Upon entering her office, she locked the door and turned on every single anti-monitoring device she'd installed in the room (paranoia was a wonderful thing). Once seated at her desk, she picked up the secure phone built into it and dialed a specific number.

"There is a situation that needs to be sanitized," she spoke without preamble.

_"Yes, ma'am."_

"Follow the frequency trace signal to the targets."

_"Yes, ma'am."_

"Fully sanitization protocols. No mistakes."

_"Yes, ma'am."_

"I want four clips sent."

_"That's double the norm."_

"Redundancy. I hate to repeat a task. Understood."

_"Completely, ma'am."_

"At once. Priority target is Morana."

_"Dispatching teams now. ETA is after sunset, target time."_

Roulet had thought hard about how he'd get the attention of whoever was after him, and discarded several ideas. He wanted it to be flashy, but not too obvious. After all, he wanted them to fall into his trap without realizing it. He wasn't stupid enough to think that they wouldn't expect a trap, so he wanted to do something that would hide his trap without really hiding it. Then he had it. Now it was nearing sunset, and he was on a rooftop standing behind a bunch of custom-made fireworks. Lighting the single fuse that split into several fuses leading to each one, he stood back and took a drag on his cigarette, blowing smoke out right at the instant the rockets shot off. He was smirking hugely as they exploded, scattering sparks and light in specific patterns . . .

Nano looked up in time to see fireworks exploding. She thought it was odd, until she realized what was going on. Then her jaw dropped. The fireworks had made several words that read:

BACK THIS WAY YOU DUMB FUCKS

"Well, _that's_ rather obvious," Echo commented dryly. Keying her headset, she said, "Sta, Tic. You see that."

_"I'm sure _everyone_ saw that,"_ came Tic's reply.

"Let's converge on the location those fireworks came from."

"He won't be there," Nano said.

"He'll be close by. Close enough to further get our attention. Remember, girls, it's a trap."

_"I'll keep an eye on you four,"_ Zero said softly, already falling into the Zen-like no-thought state of a professional sniper.

"Then let's get his ass."

Morana saw it, too, and knew exactly what was going on. It wasn't a challenge to her, not directly; it was bait for her teammates. Roulet was drawing them in, and would undoubtedly kill them. But where they were going, she would go, too; although she wasn't certain if it was to save her teammates or to get to Roulet. She didn't head to where the fireworks had been launched from, though. She began heading in a different direction, towards the interior of the mainland; there were plenty of abandoned or empty buildings in that area that would be excellent traps. Running into a narrow alley, she leaped onto a dumpster, then jumped to the wall opposite the dumpster, then over to the other wall, repeating the process at speed as she 'climbed' her way up the buildings to the rooftops. Once up there, she began moving swiftly, leaping from building to building (or finding ways up or down to them), all the while heading in the general direction of the forest outside of Jump City. She was certain that when she was close enough, she'd find Carter Roulet.

And this time, no one would stop their fight.

Carter led them on a merry chase, staying close enough for them to keep him in sight but far enough away that it wasn't easy. He could see that there were four of them, all girls, and only one _looked_ normal; he realized she wasn't when she snapped her fingers while snapping her hand forward and a high-pitched, barely audible, sound exploded the brick work under his feet. He'd snapped some knives back at them, but the girl with richly dark black hair had raised her hands and the knives hit an invisible barrier of some kind. When the knives flew towards an air conditioning unit and stuck, he knew that the girl could manipulate magnetic energy in some fashion. Of course, he wasn't entirely leading them on; they were herding him, too. But they were forcing him to go where he was intending to go in the first place so it all worked out. And it wasn't that hard to stay ahead of them, either; as Red X, he'd prowled the city's rooftops so he was very familiar with them.

"Damn he's fast!" Echo growled as Roulet continued to stay one step ahead of them. They were closing the distance, but it was difficult work. He didn't seem to be escaping so much as toying with them. And because of his movements, Zero had yet to have a clear enough shot to guarantee one hundred percent take-down. Sta's electromagnetic abilities kept them protected from Roulet's surprisingly accurate knife-throwing, though Tic hadn't taken a shot at him since there was too much metal around to ensure that only he would take the shock. She'd gotten a seveal chances to hit him, but he'd always avoided taking damage; the buildings and projections on them were another story, however. Snapping her wrists down, she dropped a three-bladed shuriken into each hand and snapped her wrists forward, sending the throwing stars in curving arcs. A few moments later all four of them heard a "What the fuck?!" from Roulet as at least one of the shurikens at least grazed him.

"Sta, Tic," Echo said. "I want you two to break right; there's a few seven-story buildings nearby. He might be heading to one of them to try to lose us. You two cut him off."

"Awesome!" Sta said exuberantly.

"Whatever," Tic replied, following her 'sister.'

"Nano, I want you to break left and head around those other high-rise buildings. Come at him from the other side."

"You got it," the machine girl said, leaping onto an adjacent roof and moving off.

"Zero, I want you to begin driving him towards Sta and Tic."

_"Affirmative,"_ came the whisper. _"Limited to sixteen rounds of sufficient force for distance and penetration."_

"Make them count."

_"Affirmative."_

Morana had her earpiece back in place, and was listening to her friends as they tried to catch Roulet. She wanted to break in, to tell them that it was a trap - even though she knew that they knew it was a trap - but she stopped herself. It wasn't that she didn't care for them, maybe a little more with Nano, but that doing so would interfere with her goal of facing Roulet herself. She did, however, accelerate her pace to try and get to the building she _knew_ he was leading them to; the sharp, acrid scent of the explosives he'd placed in it was rather obvious to her.

And she had a bad feeling that something else was going to happen; her instincts were screaming at her that something else was wrong, and they weren't being triggered by Roulet.

"Ten rounds left," Zero reported, snapping back the bolt to eject the spent cartridge and slide in a new round.

_"I think we've got him cornered now. Be ready."_

"Affirmative," she said, readying her seventh round.

Roulet was waiting on the fifth floor when the four C.A.T.Z. girls caught up to him. He was sitting in an old folding chair, one leg propped on a discarded paint can, smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper. When they busted in, he moved the paper to one side, looked them, moved it back and said, "About damn time you got here. There's only so many times one can read the same seven-year-old articles before they get boring."

"You do realize you're outmatched, don't you?" Echo asked, throwing knives sliding into her waiting hands. Roulet chuckled, then laughed. Setting aside the paper and standing, he stretched himself out - and pulled out twin katanas when he brought his arms down.

"Actually, you're the ones 'outmatched'," he replied, a dark half-smile on his face. "Don't think for one second you even have a chance against me. A snowball in hell has a better chance than you." He looked over at the 'twins.' "And why do you look so happy?"

"Because I just am!" Sta replied cheerfully, right before she and Tic rushed at Roulet. The move caught him off guard, but not enough to really matter. Tic launched electrical bolts at him, aiming for his swords, while his counterattacks were deflected by Sta's electromagnetic barriers. Echo had thrown her knives at him, then drawn her fighting daggers. Roulet's katanas had a longer reach than her blades and, judging by how well he was holding of Sta and Tic, he was faster as well. Then her blades were snatched out of her hands by Nano, who had rushed right by her nearly without notice. As though it was rehearsed, the twins broke to opposite sides as the machine girl slid smoothly into their place. The fighting daggers were moving in nearly a blur as she attempted to penetrate his defenses. But in spite of the katanas not being too well suited to such close-in fighting, Roulet's defense never broke. She was pressing him hard, but it wasn't enough. Not enough at all. Ducking under a swing, he straight-armed a punch into her midriff, breaking her rhythm enough for a katana to sweep in. She stumbled back, brining up both long knives to block his blow - only for his second katana to rip through her abdomen and slash out her left side. Whatever Nano had for blood began spraying and pouring from the wound as she staggered a couple of steps and collapsed. Echo, Sta, and Tic didn't move, too much in shock; Roulet merely stood up and watched the metal-skinned girl as she began bleeding out. Just then, though, Echo happened to look at Roulet, saw something past him - and felt her jaw drop.

"Oh, shit," she said. Roulet had just started to turn his head when a booted foot slammed into it with enough force to send him flying into a wall - several feet away. Morana landed, one knee deeply bent and the other on the floor, Gurkha kukris in hand. Looking up, the others saw her poison-green eyes shift to a blood-red color and each felt a tremor of fear. There was a sound of coughing, and of rubble hitting concrete flooring, as Roulet pulled himself out of the wall. Blinking his eyes and shaking his head, he looked over and saw Morana just standing up. She looked over at him, her body perpendicular to his, and said, "Hurting her was a mistake."

"How's that, Tiny Tit?" he retorted with a self-confident, arrogant smirk. Her answering grin almost made his own falter.

"Because now I don't have to hold back at all."

But, just then, all the windows on that floor exploded inward and forty-eight heavily-armed black-armored commandos burst in. Sta and Tic didn't hesitate for even a nanosecond; they moved Echo over to where Nano lay - actually, Tic had thrown her - and Sta raised an electromagnetic barrier as the mysterious soldiers opened fire with heavy automatic weapons and semi-automatic grenade launchers. The strain on the golden-white-skinned girl was evident, and it was obvious she wouldn't be able to hold out for long. Roulet had dropped out of the line of fire, and rolled behind a pillar that gave him momentary cover (he seemed to have forgotten about his teleportation belt for the moment). And with Sta fading with each passing second, it looked like CATZ was going to be cut down.

But that was if one didn't take Morana into account.

Screaming with a berserker's rage, suffused with a bloodlust that she hadn't felt for over forty years, she charged at the commandos, her kukri moving so fast she seemed to be wielding pure rings of silver light. Bullets began falling to the ground, cut up or in half. Releasing the kukris from her hands, she drew her kodachis and began using them to cut the bullets; the Gurkha kukris, held in the grip of her telekinesis, began slicing through the air, cutting for the soldiers. Her katana and wakizashi were drawn next, but by her mental ability. She released the kodachis from her physical grip, grabbing them in her mental grip, and let the katana fall into her left hand. With her right, she drew her last blade - an Indian poinard.

"Fire the icendiary!" one of them shouted. It didn't matter to her who had said it; they were all dead. Looking like she was moving as fast as the bullets, Morana dodged and slipped around the increasingly heavy fire being directed at her, fully immersed in her 'wind-dancing' style. A savage, blissful smile was on her face as she reached a line of commandos. One attempted to rush her from the side, but he was literally sliced to ribbons by the five swords floating around her via telekinesis. Her katana sliced into the armored torso of one soldier, blood spraying out of the fatally deep wound like water from a fire hose, as the poinard bit through the visored head of another, sending another fountain of blood into the air. A single twitch and she was several feet from her original position, and gunfire and grenades hit the unfortunate soldiers who were now in the line of fire. Screaming a blood-thirsty cry of rage and fury, Morana rammed both blades into the gut of a commando and ripped them out the _opposite_ sides, easily severing his spinal column and sending the torso falling to the ground to land in the guts spilling out of it. Then she was again several feet away, this time slashing her katana through the neck of a grenadier while the poinard bit deep into the ribs of his machine gun-wielding companion. More blood fountained into the air beside her as another soldier lost his head. Whipping around, she saw Roulet there, his own katanas dripping blood. Lost as she was in her bloodlust, she had the presence of mind of to switch the katana and poinard to telekinesis and grab the Gurkha kukris with her hands. Then she threw herself at him, all seven of her swords flashing. Most of the commandos had been killed or fatally wounded by now, with more than half of them killed by Morana herself.

Echo, Sta, and Tic were stunned beyond belief at the carnage they had just witnessed. Even with what Nano had told them aboard the jet, they had been completely unprepared for actually witnessing it. But watching as the beserk Morana attacked Roulet snapped them out of their daze. With Sta still providing cover with her electromagnetism, Echo created a sonic wave to shatter the wall ahead of them. Tic picked up the bleeding and unconscious Nano as carefully as possible in a fireman's carry, and followed Echo to the wall. Even though they were five stories up, this building was so close to its neighbor that getting across wouldn't be a problem. But that wasn't the plan; instead, Sta encapsulated the group in an electromagnetic bubble and forced them out the hole. As they plunged towards the ground, Echo generated sonic waves through the bubble to cushion their fall.

"What about Morana?" Sta asked as she 'collapsed' the bubble.

"She can take of herself," Echo replied, more than a little scared of 'Lady Death.'

_Just a minute longer_, Zero thought, tightening her grip ever-so-slightly on her rifle's trigger.

Morana and Roulet ripped through the fifth floor of the abandoned building, heedless of the damage they were doing to it - or the blood flying and arcing through the air from the unfortunate commandos who got in the way of her whirling blades. Roulet, for his part, actually found himself trying as he deflected, blocked, and dodged her seven swords. The fury, speed, and power she possessed actually surprised him; moreover, it began to appeal to him. In her, he saw unbridled bloodlust and instability. Factors he had in common with her, though his was a cancer that his hyperactive healing ability barely kept in check. After one particularly brutal clash between his katanas and her Gurkha kukris, they sprang apart to get themselves enough room to attack again.

"You're one tough bitch," he conceded, catching his breath a little.

"You're not so bad yourself, asshole," she commented, nodding to him.

Drawing a full breath, Zero let out half of it and pulled the trigger.

Roulet and Morana were just about to leap back at each other when a loud _crack!_ pierced their battle haze. Blinking, he looked down at himself but couldn't see any sign of injury (not that anything less than a headshot would really put him down for any length of time). Looking up, he was shocked to see a dark stain spreading on Morana's shirt - right where her heart was. Blinking in disbelief, she looked down at herself, saw and felt the blood leaving her, then looked back at him. With a ringing clatter of steel, the five swords she had been holding with her telekinesis fell to the floor. And her kukris slid out of her hands as she herself fell to her knees.

"Well . . . fuck . . .," she managed to say, coughing.

And right then, the explosives Roulet had rigged in the third floor went off.

Finally taking her eye from the scope, Zero looked in the direction her shot had went, then raised to a kneeling position and turned off her cloaking ability. Ejecting the spent cartridge from her rifle, she disassembled it and put it in its carrying case. Then she policed her seven spent casings and slipped them into a pocket on her combat harness. Reaching up to the comm unit in her ear, she said, "Primary target eliminated. Secondary target possibly inactive for the moment.

And thousands of miles away, Doctor Celia Williams of Failsafe smiled coldly and replied, "Good work. Return to base."

**End Notes:** I don't think I need to say anything right here; this chapter pretty much speaks for itself. I will say this, though: in a few days I'm going to be putting up a writing challenge on my profile - once I figure out what the challenge should be. So keep a look out. And do review this chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

**DISCLAIMER:** DC Comics is not owned by me. Any canon characters used in this story are the property of DC Comics. This story is mainly about original characters, though it occurs in the DC universe - specifically, within the universe established by DantesClover in **Hidden Agenda** (read it, y'all).

**Author's Note:** The characters Morana, Echo, Zero, Nano, Sta, Tic (pronounced "tech"), and StaTic (the fused form of Sta and Tic) are the propety of me, of course. As is their group, Covert Action Team Zeta (C.A.T.Z.). The characters Dr. Celia Williams and Carter Roulet are the property of DantesClover, and are used with his permission. If you want to know about those two characters, check out his stories **Hidden Agenda** and **Against the World**. You should also check out **Bone, Luck, and X** by heartofwind. Pretty good story. It's also set within the same universe as DantesClover's two Roulet stories.

**C.A.T.Z.**

**True Agenda**

**Chapter 5 - Time with Death**

Echo, Sta, and Tic all stopped and turned when the sound of the explosions reached them. In shock, they watched as they building they had been in only minutes ago collapsed down upon itself. They'd heard Zero's shot, too, but didn't know if had gotten Roulet. They didn't even know if Morana had made it out. But right now they had bigger problems - namely, the slowly dying Nano. Her 'blood' had stopped flowing out of the ghastly wound in her side, and was instead merely oozing, though whether that was from blood loss or some sort of self-repair system she had no one was certain. They _had_ to get her taken care of - and there was no way she would last long enough to make it to the jet. Getting there fast was ideal, but would undoubtedly kill her; moving slow enough not to aggravate or worsen the injury would also kill her.

"She isn't going to make it," Tic said, her normally flat voice having some emotion to it; a sign that told Echo just how worried the girl actually was. Sta was openly crying, her normal pep and joy gone. Echo couldn't afford to lose it now; her team, especially Nano, was counting on her.

"Listen up," she said quietly. "I want the two of you to do what you can to keep Nano alive. We'll set her in a safe place, one that's hidden. I'm going to get to the jet as fast as I can, get the mobile aid station. If I have to, I'll bring the jet here and we'll lift her up in some kind of litter or something."

"Hurry," Tic said, looking over at her sister. "You will have to hurry."

"That was never in question," the translucent blue-eyed girl agreed.

_She found herself back in the room she'd been created in. The room was the same as it had been on that day, but she wasn't. Looking around, she saw that the room _was_ different; she was the only one in it. Everything else, though, was still the same. The stainless steel chemical containers, the transparent incubation tubes, all of the scientific equipment that was meant to mix and tweak DNA and genetic structures. All of it was there. Looking around, she found a door in a wall that had previously just been a wall. As she walked towards the door, it opened on its own. When she walked through it, she found herself in a room that was more like a long hallway. On either side of her, from floor to ceiling, were tanks two and a half feet tall with a two foot diamter. They were empty of anything except for air. Maybe not even that. She knew this place, of course; just as she had known the room she'd just been in. And as before, the room was empty, occupied only by her. Looking down at herself, she was surprised to see that she was wearing the clothes she'd had on before (though why that surprised her she didn't know). She was also surprised to see a hole in the shirt at the precise spot her heart would have been._

_What's going on here? she asked, though she heard no sounds. Why am I here?_

_Is it really that difficult to figure out? something answered, it's 'voice' echoing from everywhere, preventing her from finding out where it was coming from._

_Who are you? she demanded. What did you do to me?_

_I have done nothing, child, except to bring you here._

_And where is 'here'?_

_Here._

_I don't have time for riddles!_

_No, you do not, it agreed, shocking her._

_I don't think you were supposed to agree with me, whoever you are._

_Who I am is not important at this juncture, though you should me very well. I shall ask you a question now. Would it be easier for you to understand things if you were to know just who I was, who I am, and who I shall be?_

_Aren't those three different things?_

_They are and they are not. You must answer now, though._

_She thought about her answer; thought about it carefully. No, she said after mere moments and an eternity. It wouldn't matter, and would more than likely make it more difficult._

_That is the answer I knew you would give._

_If you knew that, why did you ask the question?_

_To see if you knew the answer. Your life is fading, taken by one whom you trusted as friend._

_That . . . that can't be true! It's . . . it just can't!_

_The things that are true are often the hardest to accept. You are, indeed, fading from the living._

_Who . . . who did it?_

_Who was the instrument of your soon to be death, or who was the architect of it?_

_They aren't the same?_

_No, child. But you already know who was responsible for both._

_Zero . . . Zero is the only one . . . who could make such a shot. But . . . I don't know who would want me killed._

_You do know. You just do not want to see the truth, for the betrayal is deep._

"I hope this works."

_Who said that?_

_He cannot hear you._

_'He'?_

_The one who is attempting to save your life._

_You're Death, aren't you?_

_If that is how you wish to see me._

_What are you going to do with me?_

_What do you wish me to do?_

_You're giving me a choice?_

_There is always a choice._

_I . . . I don't want to die. I have . . . questions. I need answers._

_In death, you would find your answers._

_But I wouldn't be able to do anything with them._

_That is true._

_So . . . I _want_ to live._

_And in saving your own life, you shall save another's._

_Who?_

_Again, you know the answer. I cannot answer it for you. The future does not exist until it becomes the present, and the present cannot exist in the past._

_What?_

_Goodbye, Morana._

Roulet sighed with relief as the monitors showed Morana's vitals finally stabilizing. They were still low enough for him to be concerned about her survival, but they weren't dropping any longer. He looked over at the IV bag hooked up to her, and watched as the blood dripped from it in the IV line that went into the main veins on her neck, chest, and one arm. He'd had to improvise, since stealing most of the medical equipment hadn't been easy, even with his teleportation belt. And, plus, he was still dizzy from the blood he'd taken out of himself to put into her to keep her alive long enough for him to get the blood stock from the various hospitals. Now that she was, if not out of the woods, at least no longer lost in them. Sitting back in the folding chair he'd set up next to the bed, he closed his eyes. He was confused, although that was an understatement. He didn't know why he'd saved her at all, yet he had done so. He'd teleportated the both of them from the collapsing building, then had done everything he could to keep her alive. _We were going to try to kill each other anyway_, he said to himself. _So . . . am I saving her life to end it . . . or is there some other reason? And what could in the hell could it possibly be?_

He hadn't realized he'd drifted off until Morana's moaning snapped his eyes awake. Looking at his watch, he was surprised to see that he'd been out for twelve hours. _Well, fuck_, he thought, standing up and stretching even as he glanced at the stolen medical equipment that was monitoring Morana's vitals. He was actually stunned to see that, in the twelve hours since he'd last checked, her vital signs had improved tremendously. More than even he'd expected. She was recovering almost as fast as . . .

_Me_, he realized with a shock. _She's recovering almost as fast as I would! What the hell?_ He exchanged the nearly empty blood bags for fresh ones, still trying to puzzle it out. _I mean, I _expected_ her to recover quickly, but there's no way even the amount of blood I'd given to her would have done_ that_! It's almost like her body assimilated my blood, merged it with hers, and then began producing it on its own. What is she?_

Shaking his head, he walked out of the bedroom and into the rest of the apartment. It wasn't the one he'd been staying in while in Jump City, but another one in a well-to-do section of the city that he'd kept on a 'just-in-case' basis. One of those timeshare penthouse deals. Heading into the kitchen, he opened the wine rack and pulled out the scotch he'd put in there fourteen hours ago. Nicely chilled, and a nice year, too. Grabbing a glass, he headed to the living room and dropped onto the couch. Propping his feet up on the expensive glass table - and scuffing the glass in the process - he set the glass on the end table and popped the bottle's cork.

And then he tipped the bottle to his mouth and let the throat-scorching liquid pour down it. He pulled a syringe of morphine out of his jacket and injected the vein in his arm with the pain-dulling contents; a moan escaped his lips as the pain that had been exponentially building within began to fade. He wouldn't take anymore, not right now; though he could use it, he didn't have the time a full dose would require. He had to be ready in case anything went wrong, and the downtime following a full dose would be bad in this case. Setting the now half-empty bottle of scotch on the end table, he pulled the book that is in the middle of the couch - a thick and boring medical handbook - and began leafing through it again, trying to learn how to keep someone as badly injured as Morana alive.

A few hours later - of which only a few minutes had been spent on the medical book - he went in and checked on her. Once again, he was shocked at how fast she was recovering. The gunshot wound in her chest was nearly sealed up, and according to the equipment he'd stolen her heart was almost fully regenerated. Then he saw she was conscious and looking at him.

"You're getting to be a pain in the ass," he told her.

"Your bedside . . . manner . . . sucks," she replied.

"I'm not a doctor."

"Really? I . . . couldn't tell."

"You should shut up now," he said. "You've been through hell."

"I feel like . . . it," she agreed. "Zero . . . shot me."

"Zero? The assassin? The sniper no one's ever caught?" Roulet was stunned.

"Yeah." Morana tried a chuckle, but could barely manage a rasping cough. "She . . . was supposed to . . . be a friend."

"With a friend like her, I don't think you need any enemies."

"You don't say."

"You know, you actually flatlined for a bit," he told her softly, something . . . different in his voice. As out of it as she currently was, she picked up on it.

"I know," she said, looking at him oddly. "I . . . I went back . . . to where I'd been . . . born. The lab that . . . I was created it."

"You don't have a mother?"

"Well, I did have . . . the genetic storage container . . . I was born in," she replied with a faint smirk on her face. "I'm . . . pure test tube."

"Damn," he said.

"I'm worse than . . . Frankenstein's monster. He had . . . a father, at least. I . . . had no one." She began drifting back to sleep as a small stream of tears fell from one eye. "And . . . I have no one . . . now."

That was the last thing she said before she fell back asleep, and let her now hybrid blood continue to heal her. Roulet, meanwhile, was staring at her with his jaw hanging open. He couldn't believe what she just said, and not because it was something personal.

It was because it was virtually the same story he had.

**End Note:** What a chapter. Nano might still be dying, Zero might be a traitor . . . and Roulet saved Morana's life. And perhaps doomed it as well. And then she goes and confesses to him her perception of herself to him, which is almost exactly like his perception of himself. And now that you've read all of this, leave a review. DantesClover, please let me know how you like this chapter.


	6. Chapter 6

**DISCLAIMER:** DC Comics is not owned by me. Any canon characters used in this story are the property of DC Comics. This story is mainly about original characters, though it occurs in the DC universe - specifically, within the universe established by DantesClover in **Hidden Agenda** (read it, y'all).

**Author's Note:** The characters Morana, Echo, Zero, Nano, Sta, Tic (pronounced "tech"), and StaTic (the fused form of Sta and Tic) are the propety of me, of course. As is their group, Covert Action Team Zeta (C.A.T.Z.). The characters Dr. Celia Williams and Carter Roulet are the property of DantesClover, and are used with his permission. If you want to know about those two characters, check out his stories **Hidden Agenda** and **Against the World**. You should also check out **Bone, Luck, and X** by heartofwind. Pretty good story. It's also set within the same universe as DantesClover's two Roulet stories.

**C.A.T.Z.**

**True Agenda**

**Chapter 6 - Revelations**

Nano was onboard the jet and hooked up to the medical equipment - and the jet back at its original landing site - when Zero showed up. Echo expressed her feelings over the situation by slamming the other girl into the interior fuselage by the door.

"Just what the hell was that?!" she demanded.

"Let go of me, Echo," was the reply. Echo's response was to raise her end, clench all but her index finger, and then put that finger straight at Zero's eye.

"All it takes is a thought," she said quietly, "and I can send a concentrated burst of sonic energy straight into your brain through your eyeball. I may be the nicest person on the team next to Sta, but your actions were negligent and treasonous. If Nano dies, you won't live much longer than her."

"I don't doubt you mean that, but killing me will be harder than you think."

"So explain yourself, Zero."

"I was following orders."

"Like hell you were! I told you to fire when you had a shot!"

"Who said it was _your_ orders I was following?"

"What?" Echo said, stunned - but not enough to relax her guard. And Zero knew it.

"I was following orders, Echo. Just not yours. I'm a mercenary, an assassin for hire."

"Yeah, and Doctor Williams brought you in to help us, as a way to redeem yourself."

"Don't tell me you bought that garbage? Williams is about as altruistic as Morana is a pacifist. But you already know that. You had Nano break into Failsafe's files, after all."

"Failsafe? What does Failsafe have to do with this?"

"Everything." Zero realized that even with the information they'd hacked, Echo still didn't know the extent of the situation. "Roulet is a product of Failsafe. He was intended to be a weapon for them, but things went to hell and now he's a loose cannon. He can't be killed - not permanently, anyway - and is just as skilled as Morana. And you don't know everything about her, either. Not even Nano knows."

"Knows what?" Echo asked, letting her go and stepping back.

"That Morana is, in a way, another product of Failsafe."

"What the hell?"

"Morana was created by DeathTech. She was supposed to have been killed by them, but someone made the mistake of saying so in her presence so she did what they'd created her to do: she killed almost everyone in the facility. She was cryogenically frozen since she was still valuable as a research subject. Failsafe came about when the survivors of DeathTech reconstituted. The project that created Morana was used as the basis for the project that created Roulet."

"How do you know all of this?" Tic said, walking out of the back area.

"It pays to know your employer," Zero said. "And it costs, too. I had to spend plenty of money to get all of that information. The DeathTech files were locked and sealed; the Failsafe records were easier to acquire."

"Did you at least knock Roulet out of commission?" Echo asked.

"The collapsing building may have done that."

"You didn't shoot him?"

"I was paid to kill Morana. But I'm not certain she's dead. Just like I'm not certain she and Roulet were still in the building when it fell."

"Williams," Echo said. "She paid you to kill Morana."

"She paid me to work with you. Killing Morana only became a primary objective if the situation escalated. Which it did. With the information I have about DeathTech, Morana has about a fourteen percent chance of survival. Statiscally."

"You do know that if she survives you're dead, right?" Tic asked. Zero merely shrugged.

"I'm not worried about it. What will happen will happen."

A day after she'd woken up for a few moments, Morana was able to get out of the bed. She was still a little week, but certainly stronger than she should have been. _Hell_, she thought, _I shouldn't even be alive. _No one_ Zero hits ever lives._ She found that she'd been unhooked from a variety of medical equipment - except for an IV line leading down to her arm. Gently pulling that out, she watched as the hole the needle had poked in her skin welled up with blood and then healed up. Wiping the blood away, she found that her skin was smooth. No trace anything had ever been there. Then she realized that, from the waist up, she was naked. That fact didn't bother her at all. She felt like _something_ should be bothering her, but she couldn't think of a thing and just decided to accept that things were alright. She found a shirt on the nightstand next to the bed and slipped it on; it was a little large for her, but it was a shirt. She stretched a little, feeling out the kinks in her muscles and joints, then walked out of the bedroom to look for Roulet. She didn't really recall much after being shot, but she did remember waking up before and seeing him; she also remembered the conversation they'd had. When she walked into the living area of what was obviously a penthouse suite, Roulet was on the couch watching the massive television that dominated one wall. He looked over at her, saw she was up and about, and said, "Doing okay now?"

Though surprised at the lack of sarcasm and verbal wordplay she'd already come to expect from him, she said, "Helluva lot better than I was doing before."

"It's about time, too," he replied, though his voice indicated he was worried about something. "You remember what happened?"

"I remember being shot," she told him. "And I remember waking up to see your mug looking at me. Between those two points everything's a little fuzzy."

"Not surprising, considering you were mostly unconsious - or dead."

"Alright, what's bothering you?"

"Nothing." She didn't answer, just raised an inquiring eyebrow.

"Look, I had to do something I never do."

"Save my life?"

"I've saved lives before. I think."

"You think?"

"Every time I get killed, I go through an amnesia thing. I forget a lot of what happened before I got killed."

"Alright, fine. Chill. So what did you do?"

It was obvious that Roulet didn't want to answer, but he finally, reluctantly, said, "I gave you my blood."

"Normally that would be a good thing."

"Not with my blood. I don't really want to say any more, because it ties in with, well, things I'd rather not talk about."

"Then I'll let you in on a secret," Morana said. "I am a member of a group called Covert Action Team Zeta, or C.A.T.Z. Rather silly, I know. But the group wasn't formed spontaneously; a woman by the name of Docter Celia Williams formed the group." As soon as she'd said that name, Roulet was on his feet and in front of her.

"What did you just say?" he asked in a dangerously quiet voice.

"Doctor Celia Williams formed the team I was a part of. Before the group was formed, I lived with an alien robot girl named Nano in an apartment she had set up for us. And before that, she woke me up from cryogenic stasis - or suspended animation, whichever you prefer."

"That bitch is on my hit list; in fact, she tops it," he growled. "Maybe I should have let you die."

"Perhaps you should have," she agreed. "But you didn't. Now shut up and listen. About forty-two years ago I was put in suspended animation. I was 'born' fourteen years before that in a top secret facility belonging to an agency called DeathTech. They're purpose was the creation and development of biological combat systems - i.e., genetically altered - and created - super soldiers programmed strictly for combat. I was the first - and only - viable unit the program produced. And for the next fourteen years I was taught everything and anything that had to do with killing. I was poked, prodded, and tested every day. During my incubation period, my entire genetic structure as messed around with and my DNA altered. I was mentally unstable from the moment I was born." Roulet was, uncharacteristically, quiet. _This_ was not what he was expecting to hear. "I had a preference - more like an obsession - with swords. That's what my training began focusing on. When I was six, it was discovered I had a talent for telekinesis and that was soon incorporated into my training. I had no reason to suspect anything was amiss; I wasn't stupid in any way. I was actually smarter than anyone expected." Morana had walked over to the couch and sat down, still feeling weak. Roulet had followed her, though he remained standing. "I just didn't see what was coming."

"And what was that?" he asked when she fell silent and didn't seem to be continuing; in fact, she had that gaze that meant she was seeing the events she was describing.

"A couple of the scientists were talking outside of the glass cube that was my 'home' inside the facility," she said, her voice still quiet. "They talked about having all of the data they needed, but how my mental imbalance wasn't suitable for production and that . . . that I was to be terminated. Killed. Naturally, I didn't take that too well, especially with my 'unstable' mental state."

"Naturally," Roulet agreed.

"I remember every single detail of what happened next," Morana went on. "I remember breaking out of my glass room by shooting a fork through it - and into the head of one those scientists. I remember picking up the swords that were mine with my mind and just killing and killing and killing. I was finally brought down by a genetically-tailored tranquilizer. It didn't knock me unconscious like it was supposed to; it left me immobile enough to be shackled, but completely aware. What was left of the scientific staff of DeathTech - and they were my main targets - set up a cryogenic freezing chamber and tested it on me. Then they locked me away in the facility's vault and shut everything down."

"If you were frozen, how did you know where they put you?"

"It's where I woke up. The cryogenic tube was still sealed when I woke up; at the time, I thought it was a good thing because the sight of Doctor Williams's white lab coat triggered a kill-reflex. Think about it, though; people in white labcoats put me to sleep after trying to kill me. Then along comes an old woman in a white labcoat. She wakes me up, and tells me that she wants to give me a purpose in life."

"I imagine that made a big impression on you," he said.

"Like water to a dying plant," she agreed. "Zero was supposed to be a part of the team, but she doesn't work without being paid."

"Doctor Williams pulled her strings. I bet she sees you as just as much of a threat as she does me."

"Yeah," she said, her voice a little sad. "I'm going to prove her right. You're not supposed to bite the hand that feeds you, but that hand just hit me with one hell of a big stick. And this bitch bites."

Roulet chuckled, amused by what she said but knowing what she meant.

"Now, are you going to tell me why you giving me your blood is such a bad thing?"

"It's cancerous," he said without preamble or hesitation. "I was injected with a cancer that will kill anything whose blood isn't mine. The problem is, it's killing me, too, because that bitch Williams experimented with my DNA so much that it's no longer the original genetic strain that the cancer is engineered to. And it's only because of my hyperfast healing ability that I'm staying alive."

"So it might be killing me?"

"You should've been dead the moment I put my blood in you."

"So why am I not?" Roulet shrugged.

"Who knows?" he replied. "Perhaps it has something to do with your own genetic structure. Maybe your own DNA chain assimilated my DNA into itself and altered your body to produce the same type of blood. All I know is that you should be dead, you aren't dead, and you're probably even more of a bad-ass bitch than you were before."

"You think I'm a bad-ass bitch?" she asked.

"You almost kicked my ass," he said. "And the last time we fought, it was an extremely even contest. I doubt either of us would have won." They fell silent after that, but it was a comfortable silence - filled with a little tension that had a different origin.

"Do you really think my breasts are tiny?" Morana asked, pulling the collar of her shirt out and looking down it. The sudden question, asked during that easy silence, caused him to breathe down some of his whiskey. He began coughing, hard, trying to clear out his lungs. Morana began laughing at his reaction. When he'd finally recovered, he gave her a sullen look and said, "You bitch. I was drinking."

"Not my fault."

"You could've waited to ask the question."

"Does that mean you're going to answer it? I mean, you _did_ see them when you took my shirt off to dress my wound."

"Well, they _are_ small," he admitted, "but they look fantastic on you."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"I don't know. Do you feel better?"

"I still feel like a monster," she said.

"You're about as much a monster as I am," he replied.

"Stop trying to make me feel better; you suck at it. Big time." Once again, they fell silent, though this time Roulet was expecting a random question or statement.

"I'm pretty hungry," she said after a while.

"What do you want to eat?"

"Doesn't matter, so long as it's fresh and cooked."

"How about a pizza?"

"No anchovies."

"I thought you weren't picky?"

"I'm not. Anchovies just don't belong on pizza."

"Says you."

"Damn straight."

On the C.A.T.Z. jet, the team was coming to terms with Zero's revelations - and the knowledge that Nano was going to pull through. Zero, for her part, didn't try to escape or even contact Dr. Williams; as she'd put it: "I was paid for a job and I did it. End of contract." Echo was trying to figure out what to do now. They'd been used, betrayed; they're real purpose being a tool of vengeance rather than justice. All of their previous missions mocking them now. She was alone in the cockpit; Sta was staying by Nano's side and Tic was refusing to leave her sister. Zero was in the jet somewhere (Echo could have easily checked, but she didn't want to). _What are we supposed to do now?_ she asked herself. _All I ever wanted to do was be a hero, help people. I thought I found that purpose here, but it all was a lie._

"You know you shouldn't beat yourself up," Zero said from behind her.

"You a mind-reader now?" she replied bitterly.

"No. I just know that that's what you're doing right now. You had a noble purpose, and now it's been revealed as a lie. So you're doubting everything that's happened up to now."

"Alright, so what?"

"If you really believed in your mission, why should the truth change that?"

"What do you mean?"

"You believed you were doing good, killing bad guys that couldn't be dealt with in other ways."

"Yes."

"Well, why should the truth behind the creation of C.A.T.Z. change that mission? C.A.T.Z. has always operated in the darkness, doing the things that the 'real' heroes won't do."

"What's your point?"

"My point is that you still have your mission. You don't have to depend upon Doctor Williams anymore. Besides, I disabled the jet's transponder and reprogrammed the security barriers. She can't find you, and she can't hack you. Not without help."

"Why would you do that?"

"Maybe because I've come to respect all of you. What happened with Morana was just business; I respect her as a fellow professional. I won't hold it against her if she comes after me."

"If you help us, I don't know if we can pay you."

"Consider not killing me and giving me a second chance to be a down payment," the sniper said. "You can factor in the whole room-and-board thing with my future payments, too. That should save you quite a bit."

"Mercenary heroes, eh?"

"There are worse things to do. And I do know what I'm saying. Besides, you've got the ultimate strategic deterrent."

"You mean StaTic?"

"I do."

"You've got an evil mind."

"Also true."

**End Note:** And here's chapter six. Looks like all the cards are on the table, and all bets are placed. The next hand everyone plays will be a doozy. And what, exactly, is going on with Roulet and Morana? Are they bonding with each other, or is there a deeper game being played?


	7. Chapter 7

**DISCLAIMER:** DC Comics is not owned by me. Any canon characters used in this story are the property of DC Comics. This story is mainly about original characters, though it occurs in the DC universe - specifically, within the universe established by DantesClover in **Hidden Agenda** (read it, y'all).

**Author's Note:** The characters Morana, Echo, Zero, Nano, Sta, Tic (pronounced "tech"), and StaTic (the fused form of Sta and Tic) are the propety of me, of course. As is their group, Covert Action Team Zeta (C.A.T.Z.). The characters Dr. Celia Williams and Carter Roulet are the property of DantesClover, and are used with his permission. If you want to know about those two characters, check out his stories **Hidden Agenda** and **Against the World**. You should also check out **Bone, Luck, and X** by heartofwind. Pretty good story. It's also set within the same universe as DantesClover's two Roulet stories.

**Author's Note 2:** This chapter is rated M for content.

**C.A.T.Z.**

**True Agenda**

**Chapter 7 - Death Walks Again**

When the pizza arrived, Morana was actually surprised to see that there actually wasn't any anchovies on it.

"I may be a bastard," Roulet said, "but I'm not inconsiderate. You gonna dig in or just stare at it?"

Snorting in amusment, she pulled a slice out and began eating it from the tip to the crust. He shook his head and began eating his own slice - the opposite way. Roulet wasn't really sure how to act without coming off as an asshole, though he had a vague feeling he'd once been different. Morana, for her part, wasn't sure how to act around him.

"So I should be dead, right?" she said, taking a drin of the whiskey he'd poured.

"Yeah," he agreed, drinking his own bottle.

"I've still got to kill you," she told him in the same casual voice.

"I need to kill you, too," he replied in the same voice.

"You're the first person to literally save my life." Her voice was quiet now, and actually touched something in Roulet, though he wasn't sure what.

"What about your team? Your friends?" he asked.

"I don't have any friends. Nano's the only one I was close to, which really isn't saying much."

"Yeah, um, about her."

"Look, what happened happened, okay? Can't take it back, so apologizing for it won't make things better."

"That's rather harsh, isn't it?"

"I'm not a gentle person."

"People like us never are," Roulet told her, setting his whiskey down, "but that doesn't mean we can't _be_ gentle."

Morana's gaze went to his, and it seemed as though something passed between them.

"You're the only one who seems to understand me," she replied. "Only Zero ever came close, but she doesn't know what it's like. Not what I - we - went through." Their gazes never wavered, the food and drink forgotten.

"Nobody who hasn't experienced the life we've gone through can ever truly understand us," he said.

"I'm a monster, and . . . and I like it. I like the fighting, the blood, the death. It's only then-"

"-that I feel alive," they both finished in unison.

"Every moment I'm alive, I'm dying," he said. "My own body is killing me and saving me at the same time. I don't . . . I don't want to stay like this. I want to be human."

"I can't ever be human," she said with bitterness. "I was screwed up from the beginning, and then . . . then was killed."

"You're still alive; your heart's beating."

"I am dead. When DeathTech tried to kill me forty-two years ago, they succeeded in a way."

"You _can_ be human, you know."

"How? How can I become something I've never been?"

"I can help you," Roulet said, coming over to sit next to her. "I'm an asshole, a bastard, a jerk . . . a whole bunch of things that aren't good. And every time somebody manages to kill me, when I come back, I don't remember my life before I was killed. Not really. I can get bits and pieces, feelings, nothing substantial, nothing I can hold on to. And the pain of what's going with my body is always in the background. I'm searching for a cure, for a way to be like everyone else. I can't erase what I've done, I can't change what I've done or the skills I have. But one day, I'll find a cure for me. And then, who knows? I might try being normal, just to see what it's like." She opened her mouth to speak, but words failed to come out when he put a finger to her lips. "There's one thing we can do, here and now, that will make the world disappear for a few moments. That will take away the reality we live in, if only for a brief time."

"What? What can possibly do that? Wait, do you mean-"

"Yeah, that."

"I, um, well, I've never done that before."

"You're kidding."

"Hello? Frozen in ice for forty years? Thawed out two years ago? Spent that time training and killing? Never had a chance."

"Would you like one? Now?"

"I have a choice?"

"You always have a choice. Even if you choose not to choose, you're making a choice."

"I . . . I wouldn't know what to do."

"Would you like to try it? Even if it's only once?"

"You . . . you wouldn't push me for more?"

"Only if you asked me to."

Morana turned away, staring at the table without seeing it, thinking. All she had ever known was killing, fighting, death. She knew nothing of what had happened while she was frozen; one moment she was asleep, and the next she was awake. And then the training and killing and fighting started again. She looked at the glass in her hands, not really seeing it. Roulet was the only one who understand what all of that - except for the frozen in ice thing - was like. He had killed, fought, and lived with death. And now he was offering to share one more thing with her. By his words, he'd already had that experience - and many times. But the words he was using told her that it would be different this time. Finally, she set her glass down and looked back at him.

"I want to experience something other than death," she said softly. "If only once."

Morana lay back on the bed, her torso propped up by the pillows there, and pulled Roulet down to her. Their lips came together, his confident and gentle, hers hesitant and shy. She groaned as his weight settled on her, put refused to let him pull away when he tried. She moaned as she felt his hands caress her body, teasing her at certain points, but moving on to tantalize every inch of her bare skin. Her own hands weren't idle, either, running along every inch of his body, drawing moans from him as well. Both of them felt the other's scars, the unspoken stories of battles past, but were not repulsed by them; they simply accepted them and continued.

As their foreplay continued, Morana felt feelings and sensations rise within her that were both strange and familiar to her. And Roulet, while what he was experiencing nothing nothing new, felt something was different about this time. Something . . . special. And while both of them were enjoying this gentle exploration, both felt a stronger urge build up within them. A feeling of aggressiveness, as though the drive to kill they both had was trying to express itself in a different way. Indeed, when he looked into her gray eyes, he saw them flicker with green flecks. They both knew she was inexperienced in this, but it was becoming clear to them both, as their gazes locked, that in spite of it she was wanting more. She could see the question in his eyes and nodded, her own becoming a solid, poisonous green. Grinning, he returned her nod and their passion kicked up a notch, so that their coupling turned from the gentle or even passionate lovemaking that should be the normal into something combative. There was no longer any gentleness in their caresses and touches, though the passion was still there. The passion, and something more. To both, with the release of control, it felt as though a deeper connection was being forged between them, though most conscious thought had gone by the wayside now. Morana growled in the back of her throat, tired of the submissive posture she was in, and rolled them over so she was on top. She could feel Roulet's need pressed against her own, but leaned down to crush her lips against his, feeling her breasts - small as they were - press hard against his chest. She moaned into his mouth, and felt part of his body jump beneath hers. A shudder ran through her body and she suddenly found herself underneath him once again, his hands holding her arms down by the wrists, his legs straddling her hips.

Her back arched and a moan escaped her as his lips captured a nipple. She struggled against him, trying to free herself, even as she gave in to the urges and passions flooding through her. She could feel his hardness against her, could feel every twitch and jerk of it, and moaned as it rubbed against her. The motion of their bodies as each tried to fight the other for dominance in their coupling managed to move their bodies enough that he brushed against her, causing them both to freeze momentarily. Looking down between them, they looked back at each other and gently began pushing their bodies together. Both of them moaned as he slowly slipped inside her. After that, their mutual passions and desires should have escalated the situation, but instead it seemed to slow things down. Their lovemaking actually became more gentle, more passionate, as though their previous combativeness hadn't occurred. In the back of their minds, they both knew that they would never forget this time.

Morana felt sore and pleasantly exhausted when she woke up later. With a series of groans, she stretched herself out as sensuously as a cat. The covers tugging at her nude body reminded her of what had happened before. Just as the silence of the penthouse let her know that she was alone. Somehow, she wasn't really surprised. She wouldn't deny feeling a little hurt, but she had expected him to leave while she was sleeping. _At least he gave me one time_, she thought with a small smile. The smile quirked up on one side as she took stock of the aches and soreness she was feeling. _Or was it _more_ than one time?_ She chuckled a little and got out of the bed, heading to the kitchen. Making herself some breakfast and coffee, she sat down to eat it while she thought about her next course of action. If last few hours were any indication, she was definitely feeling better.

"With Zero's track record, the others probably think I'm dead," she said to herself, taking a sip of the (black) coffee. "That's if she came clean about her actions, which she undoubtedly would. I'll deal with her if I have to, but that bitch Williams has some explaining to do." She smiled; it was an expression that would have made the Grim Reaper himself swallow in nervousness. "And Zero will tell me where to find her - whether she wants to or not." Finishing her breakfast, she put her dishes in the kitchen's sink and went to take a shower. When she got out of the shower, wrapping herself in a towel, she found a package outside the penthouse's door. It was a rather big package, as far as bulk went. Bringing it in - after thoroughly checking to see if it was a trap of some kind - she set it on the coffee table and opened. There was some wrapping tissue around whatever was inside, along with a note: _You needed new clothes. Hope these work, though you owe me a few hundred bucks. ~R_

Curious now, she pulled everything out and found a pair of steel-toe black leather knee-boots, a pair of black denim capris that looked like they tucked into the boots, a deep v-necked vest, black long-sleeved shirt with a stylized skull on it that could be seen even if the vest was worn, and a black leather jacket that was nominally waist-length, except for the tail which ended at her ankles.

"Bastard's got good taste," she admitted.

A short time later, Morana was walking out of the front doors of the high-scale, high-rise apartment complex. She was still in Jump City, she saw, but she was much closer to the Titan Tower than the last time she'd looked at it. The sun was just had just set, which made her feel strangely better. She knew that her swords had gone down with that building - something that made her sad, because she really liked those Gurkhas - but she also knew that she had a few more on the jet. _Still_, she thought, _I don't like wandering around here without a blade. There are always pawn shops around, but I need a place that sells truly authentic authentic weapons._ When she saw a pay phone with a thick phone book still attached, she grinned.

And, a couple of hours later, she was walking out of a small shop with kanji on the front proclaiming it to be an authentic Japanese antique shop. Tucked into the belt she was wearing was a pair of katanas. The owner and proprietor had been reluctant to part with both blades - one of which was a very valuable and extremely rare Muramasa blade - but she had convinced him without having to resort to violence. Thus armed, with the twin katanas concealed by her jacket, Morana made her way casually back to wear she last remembered the C.A.T.Z. jet being parked. The smile on her face, though seemingly harmless, made passerby shy away from her. They found something distinctly creepy about the lone teenager dressed all in black. She was still a little pale from the bloodloss she'd experienced two days ago, which probably contributed to that impression. Not that she cared. All she had on her mind right now was pain and death. Before she was done, she would be bathing in someone's blood - just like she had done forty-two years ago. This time, though, _no one_ would freeze her.

**End Note:** And that's the end of this chapter. Morana and Roulet have a not-so-romantic romantic moment, he gets her new clothes to replace the ones she'd bleed all over, and there appears to be an emotional connection of some type between the two of them - though they only had a short time together. This chapter was somewhat difficult to do just right, though I think it turned out rather well. Please read and review.


	8. Chapter 8

**DISCLAIMER:** DC Comics is not owned by me. Any canon characters used in this story are the property of DC Comics. This story is mainly about original characters, though it occurs in the DC universe - specifically, within the universe established by DantesClover in **Hidden Agenda** (read it, y'all). The song "What I've Done" is the property of Linkin Park.

**Author's Note:** The characters Morana, Echo, Zero, Nano, Sta, Tic (pronounced "tech"), and StaTic (the fused form of Sta and Tic) are the propety of me, of course. As is their group, Covert Action Team Zeta (C.A.T.Z.). The characters Dr. Celia Williams and Carter Roulet are the property of DantesClover, and are used with his permission. If you want to know about those two characters, check out his stories **Hidden Agenda** and **Against the World**. You should also check out **Bone, Luck, and X** by heartofwind. Pretty good story. It's also set within the same universe as DantesClover's two Roulet stories.

**Author's Note 2:** This chapter is rated M for content.

**C.A.T.Z.**

**True Agenda**

**Chapter 8 - What I've Done**

Morana took her time heading back to where she last remembered the jet being parked. She had no reason to doubt it had moved, though she would be highly irritated if it had. She was still a little weak from everything that happened in the past couple of days, so she chose to keep walking. She was confident that nothing in this forest would bother her; and if something did, whatever or whoever it was wouldn't be bothering her any more after that. She was heading back to the jet because it would be the fastest way to track down Dr. Williams and . . . discuss her future living arrangements. She wasn't about to give up her new outfit - it was too awesome for that - but she also needed to get her sword care kit from it to prepare her new swords for their task. The one regret she did have was the loss of her Gurkha kukri; she really liked that blade.

_Something else to talk to 'mom' about_, she thought, a dark grin pricking her face.

"Why are we still hanging around here?" Tic asked as Echo sat down in the jet's 'lounge.' She looked over at the team's leader. "I mean, there's no way Morana could have survived a hit from Zero, or the collapse of that building."

"Maybe Roulet saved her," Sta suggested.

"Why would he do that?" her 'twin' demanded. "She was trying to kill him, if you recall."

"Well, maybe he isn't as bad as Doctor Williams made him out to be," was the slightly hurt reply. "I mean, she's lied to us about pretty much everything else."

"Sta has a point," Echo interrupted. "Roulet obviously planned that building as a trap, and we were dumb enough to fall into it. It was only dumb luck that we managed to survive at all, and a miracle that Nano lived. If it hadn't been for that strike team, whoever they were, we all might have died."

"They were Failsafe operatives," Zero put in. "Elite strike teams deployed to take out individuals dangerous to the company's existence. And the founders of Failsafe were the survivors of the DeathTech massacre orchestrated by Morana forty-two years ago."

"Any reason you're bringing that up again?" Tic said.

"Yes," the mercenary replied. "DeathTech learned from their mistakes with Morana. Their security teams had absolutely no chance against her. When they formed Failsafe, any successful results were applied to their combat personnel. If it hadn't been for Morana and Roulet, none of you would have survived."

"So do you agree with Sta and Echo?"

"If Roulet moved fast enough, and used the teleportation belt he has, then, yes. Morana would have survived, though it would have been a close thing since I used one of my custom long distance rounds to hit her. Superior powder compound, special 'spiral' unraveling of the casing to ensure penetration of non-soft obstacles." She shrugged. "And I never miss. I hit Morana precisely where I intended to hit her." Now she looked over at Echo. "How is Nano doing?"

"She's healing fine, I guess," the other girl replied. "I don't really know anything about her physiology. She's never been injured that badly before."

"It is something to research into. Or, rather, gather data upon, since there more than likely wouldn't be any data available on her people anywhere on Earth."

"It'll be a while, at least, before she'll be able to move about, and longer before she can participate in missions," Echo went on.

"So what's the plan, boss?" Tic asked flatly.

"Well, we can't take off until Nano's more stable; I don't want to risk worsening her," the raven-haired teen responded, sardonically raising one eyebrow. "We can't go back to headquarters, since Williams knows about it. And that would mean that Failsafe knows about it, too. Of course, they know about the jet, but I know the transponder's frequencies so I can generate a blocking field. And Zero has told me about the electronic tracer implanted in the navigational array, so I had her disable the inertial guidance and GPS systems."

"That it?"

"Nope. I'm not like Zero; I can't be a mercenary. I won't speak for you or Sta, or even Nano, but I intend to try and hook up with a super hero group and work with them. I've always wanted to be a hero, and until everything was exposed I thought I was. I can't stay with CATZ, not after this."

"So what are we supposed to do?" Tic demanded.

"I want to go with her," Sta said, drawing her a surprised glance from her 'twin.' "I'd like to do some good, too, without it having to be hidden. Look at the Teen Titans, or the Justice League; they do a lot of good and everyone knows about it. It's not the attention I want, it's-"

"-the chance to be legitimate," Tic finished without missing a beat. She nodded, agreeing with her 'sister.' "Alright, then. Echo, we'll go with you, too."

Zero just shrugged. "I'll go back to what I was doing before I was hired by Williams," she said. "But I'll stick around long enough to help you three, at least, pay back Doctor Williams. As payment, I want this jet."

"Deal," Echo said.

Carter sat alone in another of his safehouses. He had a bottle of whiskey in one hand, and a loaded gun in the other. Most people in this situation would be contemplating suicide, or possibly Russian roulette; not him. For one thing, he knew better since the only thing he'd lose in taking his own life would be his memory. For another, the whiskey tasted much better than a bullet. He wasn't missing Morana, though he wouldn't lie to himself and say he didn't care at all; he knew himself better.

"It wouldn't have worked out," he told himself. "I mean, my body's killing itself, with only my super healing keeping me alive. Wouldn't be a good relationship with that." He shrugged and drank a third of the whiskey. "She looks great, she's the only one - that I can remember - who seems to understand me. But it's for the best that we went our own ways. I don't know if I ever started out human, but I want to _be_ human. I'm tired of living in constant pain, tired of being on the edge of death all the time." He stood and walked to the window in the bedroom. Bracing an arm on the frame, he looked out at the city before him. "Williams made me what I am. I still intend to kill the bitch, but first I'm going to force to make me normal. As far as my DNA is concerned, at least."

Everyone was stunned when Morana walked into the jet. She walked right by everybody, heading towards the back of the jet where she kept her gear. As she walked by Zero, her fist lashed out with blurring speed and smashed the girl's face, knocking her into the cabin wall. Zero had no time to react, so she wasn't able to block it; now, she hit the cabin's floor, unconscious.

"That's for shooting me, bitch," Morana said without breaking stride.

"Morana," Echo began.

"Shut up, Echo," she interrupted. "I've got things to take care of."

"About Williams-"

"I already know. I'm going to have a talk with 'mom,' so I need to get ready. Now, shut up before I make you shut up." With that, she shut the door to the jet's rear-most section, leaving Echo standing there in disbelief at her 'uncharacteristic' behavior.

Inside the room, which was a compact armory, Morana stripped herself naked. Walking over to a cabinet, she pulled out everything she needed to polish and sharpen her new swords. In the room's low light, the scars covering her body were barely visible; the most recent being the slightly puckered indention on the left side of her torso. Pulling the swords out of their sheaths, she set to work readying them for their coming task. As she worked, her hands going through the more than familiar motions, her mind wandered. During her walk back here, she had seen Nano lying on the bed in the medical station, hooked to so many IVs and monitoring devices she looked like the back of a TV. The should-have-been-fatal gash in her side had been covered and sealed with absorbent bandages containing disinfectants and antibiotic creams, though it was uncertain if those would work on a 'living machine' like her. Nano was like a sister to her; as far as Morana was concerned, they _were_ sisters. _The path I'm on will estrange us_, she thought as she carefully and lovingly sharpened her katanas. _There are other ways, other methods, but not for me. I am what I am. I am a killer, a monster. I am not a protector, a hero. And I have no problem with that now. I will bath in the blood of my enemies._

Finishing up her swords, she carefully cut herself on her forearms with the blades before sheathing them. Then she walked over to the same cabinet she had before, but this time she knelt down in front of it. Hitting a section of flooring with a precise amount of force in a certain spot, she revealed a hidden compartment, from which she extracted a box that was as long as her arm, as wide as her torso, and roughly three inches deep. Sitting down in the same spot she had polished her swords in, she reverantly set the box down and opened it, smiling with dark satisfaction at the contents. _It's time for you to be used_, she thought.

Coming out of the room, fully dressed, Morana stopped by Nano's bed. She stared down at her best friend, her sister, and felt a pang of regret. This mission had changed everything, for all of them.

"I wish I could have been there for you," she whispered to the cyber girl.

"No . . . problem," Nano panted, her eyes opening.

"Fuck!" Morana exclaimed, jumping. "You're awake."

"I'll . . . get back to you . . . on that."

"Dumbass." Nano looked over at her friend and frowned a little.

"You . . . going somewhere?" she asked.

"I'm going to go kill Doctor Williams," she replied nonchalantly. She saw the other girl's eyes widen in shock and said, "She's lied to and betrayed us, Nano. And she nearly succeeded in having me killed. If it hadn't been for Roulet, I _would_ be dead. Zero was the one who shot me."

"But why?"

"She was paid by Williams to do it."

"You . . . will die . . . if you go."

"I'm already dead, Nano. I've been dead for forty-two years, ever since that day when DeathTech decided they didn't need me anymore."

"I don't want you . . . to go," she said.

"I have to go. No, I _want_ to go. I intend to bathe in that bitch's blood, and the blood of anyone who gets in my way," Morana told her. She watched the shock and horror grow on the other girl's face and waited for the pangs of guilt to appear - but they didn't. "I'm a monster, Nano," she went on. "I've tried to be a 'hero,' a 'good guy,' but it's just not in me. I enjoy killing, not for sake of killing, but because it's what I was made to do. I won't kill indiscriminantly, but I will kill. When I leave . . . I won't be coming back. I'm sorry. You're too good of a person to come with me, and live the life I will be. I suppose, though, that 'unlife' might be more accurate, since I _am_ already dead." With that, Morana walked off, not giving her blood sister a chance to say anything. Everything she'd said was true. _The dead have no one but themselves_, she thought, walking to the jet's hatchway - and finding Zero there.

"You're not coming back," the assassin said.

"Not at all."

"I'll see you again, though."

"When you're dead." Nodding in agreement, she stepped aside and allowed Morana to leave. Sta was upset, and Echo was trying to comfort her - Tic wanted to, but couldn't because touching her sister would merge them. But, with the exception of Nano, they all watched as she walked out of the jet and their lives; possibly forever.

_One Week Later_

_Failsafe's Secondary Facility Beta-3_

Morana was walking up the road to one of Failsafe's hidden facilities; not the main one, but a secondary one. The information she had ruthlessly and remorselessly gathered had indicated that Doctor Celia Williams was currently at this facility. She wasn't running, but neither was she walking sedately. She was striding, with a purpose, and nothing was going to stop her. This place was surrounded by a concertina wire-topped electrified mesh fence, and was portraying itself as a 'secure government research facility;' there was some kind of light wheeled vehicle out front with a couple of guards. The smile on her face was devoid of warmth or humor. "Stop right there!" one of the guards said, stepping forward and holding out a hand. "This is a restricted government facility, kid. You just turn around right now and go back the way you came." Morana's grin grew wider as she kept on walking. The vehicle's turret swiveled towards her and its barrel depressed to point straight at her and the guards raised their rifles to the ready position. "Turn around right now, or we'll open fire!" Right about then they blinked, and Morana's katanas flashed, sending blood fountaining into the air as their heads flew off. The crew in the vehicle didn't have time to react as she leaped atop it. Her blades moved and sliced off the lock for the hatch. Kicking it open, she dropped in a fragmentation grenade. Jumping off the 6-wheeled vehicle, she sprinted to the gate as it shook a little from the grenade's detonation.

"Excuse me, Doctor Williams?" Celia Williams looked up and saw one of her aides looking in her office door.

"What is it?" she asked, setting the report she'd been reading on her desk.

"We have a situation. Someone's gotten through the gate."

"That's impossible," she said, before pulling up the security feeds on her computer. She felt her blood run cold as she saw a familiar individual flash by with swords flashing. "No," she breathed.

It wouldn't have shown on the security feeds, but Morana's eyes were a glowing gold color as she literally slashed through the Failsafe teams protecting the facility. She had shifted to her rarest combat mode, a state that caused her telekinetic ability to affect her muscles and reflexes. This meant that she could move and react much faster than even her berserker state, but the cost was a greater strain on her body. In one smooth motion, she sheathed her katanas and drew out the weapon she'd taken from the CATZ jet a week ago. Snapping her wrist, the metal poles and blade flung out and clicked together - forming a scythe. As the final piece snapped into place, Morana swung her arm around and - with the scythe making a whistling sound - sliced the heads off of two Failsafe commandos and the head and shoulders of a third. Blood sprayed into the air and drenched her clothes. Fortunately, they weren't the clothes that Roulet had gotten her; she knew what she'd be doing today and had gotten a black jumpsuit and a knee-length duster for the occasion.

Grinning like the psychotic maniac she seemed to be, she ripped into the next wave of soldiers, her enhanced speed and reflexes allowing her to nearly dodge bullets; she actually did, but by predicting the soldiers' firing lines rather than avoiding the bullets themselves. Jumping high into the air, she grasped her scythe with both hands and brought it down as she descended, her coat flaring out behind her. The scythe went through two soldiers before gouging the facility's floor; the first soldier's upper torso from the left shoulder to under the right armpit slid off while the second soldier did the same, but from below the left armpit down to just above the waist. Once again, blood sprayed into the air and innards spilled out across the floor. Laughing, Morana spun around in a circle, her scythe flashing through the rest of this particular security team as they tried to back away from her. One's arm and head flew off, another lost his legs, a third developed a splitting head(ache), and so on. A grenade flew through the air towards her, and was smacked back to its thrower where it detonated, killing two other people as well. One Failsafe security trooper threw his weapon down and cried out, "Mercy!"

"Sure," Morana said, swinging her scythe around and through the man's neck. "There you go," she added. "Quick and merciful."

Doctor Celia Williams was in a state of utter and complete shock. She'd been too young, much too young, to have been a part of DeathTech, but her father had been. He'd also been one of the few survivors of Morana's rampage through their main facility, and one of the founders of Failsafe. She'd seen the video records of DeathTech's final day, once she'd risen to the position she now occupied, and what she was witnessing now was exactly like those old records - except far, far worse. Morana had been a trained, but untested weapon then; now, she was highly trained, fully tested - and thoroughly pissed off. Williams knew that she was coming for her, that she was the main target of this back-from-the-dead girl's vengeful fury.

And that there was little she could do to stop it.

Screaming in battle lust and fury, Moran ripped her scythe through a soldier's torso, bisecting him from crotch to head, swinging her scythe in a full vertical circle to imbed the blade into the skull of a soldier behind her. She was, by now, soaked head-to-toe in blood, though her eyes had changed from glowing gold to the blood red of her berserker mode. She was in her element, doing what she had been created from birth to do. After all, hadn't DeathTech name her after Morana, the Slavic goddess of death? And it wasn't just soldiers she'd killed; there were far more than a few white labcoat wearing bodies - and pieces of bodies - behind her, as well. She licked her lips, tasting the metallic coppery flavor of the blood drenching her lips and smiled. Some of the blood soaking her was her own, but very little of it. Bringing her scythe up to rest on her shoulder, she began humming "What I've Done" by Linkin Park; while the lyrics didn't really seem to match the situation, she felt they were strangely appropriate.

By the time she'd made it to the office of Doctor Celia Williams, she'd killed a few more guards and scientists, though she hadn't had to since most of them ran from her. Slamming open the door, she said, "Knock, knock, mom."

"You're supposed to be dead, you know," Williams replied.

"Oh, I am dead," she agreed. "But I was named after a Slavic goddess of death, after all. Who also happens to be associated with rebirth in addition to death." She smiled, but it more was more like a skull's grinning rictus than an actual smile. "And don't worry about compensating your people; they kept me very amused while I was waiting for you to become available."

"You're sick."

"Actually, I've never felt better."

"Monster."

"You would know, of course, considering your daddy was one of those responsible for creating me. And looks like you followed right in his footsteps; right down to the mistakes he made." She slipped a katana out and swiftly jabbed it into Celia's shoulder, eliciting a piercing, pain-filled shriek from the mature woman. Blood swiftly began soaking her white labcoat. "I didn't appreciate you hiring Zero to kill me. After all, I'd done everything you'd asked me to do, killed everyone you told me to kill - and some I needed to kill because they were in the way - and how do you repay me? By having me killed." She pushed the sword in deeper, bringing another scream forth. Which was followed by an even more gut-wrenching scream as she twisted the blade. "And don't say you're sorry; we both know you'd be lying, and I wouldn't care, anyway, if you were sincere or not. I'm not sure if you're lucky or not that I got to you before Roulet did - again."

"You're a fucking monster," Williams said in a pain-filled, barely conscious growl.

"Considering I was virgin until eight days ago, give or take," Morana replied, "that's just rude." She twisted the blade more, nearly causing Williams to pass out from the unbelievable pain. "I'm sure you're curious as to how I'm here, slowly and enjoyable killing you. You have Roulet to thank for that. For some reason, he mixed a lot of his blood with mine, which allowed me to heal from something that should have killed me."

"He what?"

"Are you deaf as well as dying?"

"You're both fools."

"That can be argued, considering most everyone at this place is dead or dying - maybe both in some cases."

"What was done to you, from your conception until you were froze forty-two years ago, has made your blood unique. There is no other blood type like yours in existence." Williams gasped as the katana shifted slightly. "Your blood has . . . enzymes, antibodies, and . . . DNA clusters that can affect Carter Roulet's genetic structure."

"What are you saying, bitch?"

"I'm saying that your blood neutralizes the modifications to his - the healing, the cancer, the longevity - _everything_."

"You're saying that, somehow, my blood is the cure he's been searching for?"

"Yes."

Before anything more could be said, the coughing of a gun was heard at the same instant a searing pain radiated from Morana's sword arm. She jerked her arm, partially in reflex, and a nearly inhuman scream of pain tore through the room as the katana's extraordinarily sharp blade sliced Celia Williams's arm from her body. Snapping her other arm up, she flicked her scythe through the bottom of the man's jaw and out the back and top of his head. Realizing that she had run out of time for her vengeance, since more personnel and soldiers would be on the way, she looked back at the 'good' doctor, who had passed out from the pain. "I'm sure you'll survive that," Morana told her unconscious form, "so you better keep both eyes open. Because I'll be coming back for you one day. And you're not going to like it then, either." With that, she sprinted out of the office and, after a few minutes, the death-filled Failsafe Facility Beta-3.

**End Note:** What a hell of a chapter, right? Morana just got more badass, I think. Well, leave reviews, because there's only one more chapter now.

"What I've Done"

Written by Chester Bennington, Robert Bourdon, Brad Delson, Mike Shinoda, Dave Farrell, and Joseph Hahn

'In this farewell

There's no blood, there's no alibi

'Cause I've drawn regret

From the truth of a thousand lies

So let mercy come and wash away

What I've done

I'll face myself to cross out what I've become

Erase myself

And let go of what I've done

Put to rest your thought of me

While I clean this slate

With the hands of uncertainty

So let mercy come and wash away

What I've done

I'll face myself to cross out what I've become

Erase myself

And let go of what I've done

For what I've done

I start again

And whatever pain may come

Today this ends

I'm forgiving what I've done

I'll face myself to cross out what I've become

Erase myself

And let go of what I've done

(Na na na, na na na, na na na, na na na)

What I've done

(Na na na, na na na, na na na, na na na)

Forgiving what I've done

(Na na na, na na na, na na na, na na na, na na na)

(Na na na na)


	9. Chapter 9

**DISCLAIMER:** DC Comics is not owned by me. Any canon characters used in this story are the property of DC Comics. This story is mainly about original characters, though it occurs in the DC universe - specifically, within the universe established by DantesClover in **Hidden Agenda** (read it, y'all). The song "What I've Done" is the property of Linkin Park.

**Author's Note:** The characters Morana, Echo, Zero, Nano, Sta, Tic (pronounced "tech"), and StaTic (the fused form of Sta and Tic) are the propety of me, of course. As is their group, Covert Action Team Zeta (C.A.T.Z.). The characters Dr. Celia Williams and Carter Roulet are the property of DantesClover, and are used with his permission. If you want to know about those two characters, check out his stories **Hidden Agenda** and **Against the World**. You should also check out **Bone, Luck, and X** by heartofwind. Pretty good story. It's also set within the same universe as DantesClover's two Roulet stories.

**C.A.T.Z.**

**True Agenda**

**Epilogue - Aftermath**

_Five Years Later_

_Echo_

Echo tossed her backpack onto the couch in her dorm room before crossing the small living room into the kitchen. Her roommate still had a couple of classes before she got back, so she had the whole dorm to herself for the moment. Opening the fridge, she pulled out a container of cheese-covered noodles and went to put it in the microwave. As she waited for the food to cook, she shook her head at what had happened over the last five years. After C.A.T.Z., for all intents and purposes, broke up, she'd gone back home and enrolled in a college. Now twenty-four years old, she was working towards a bachelor's degree in engineering with a background in she liked to call acoustical engineering (she was studying how sound affected structures and materials, with the intent of applying that knowledge to making buildings less susceptible to shattering). She hadn't given up her dream of becoming a 'sanctioned' super hero, though she had applied most of her time and energies to her studies. The _ding_ of the microwave caught her attention and she took her food out and to the small table. She had enrolled under her given name, Erika Morgan, since 'Echo' wouldn't exactly have worked on her application. She'd actually run into 'Metropolis' favorite son,' Superman, during one of her 'super hero escapades' and he'd been impressed by her skill - rough as it was. He'd also told her that perhaps one day she might be able to join the Justice League. _"But you don't need to join the League, or even have special powers, to do good wherever and whenever you can."_ She had kept that in mind over the next couple of years as she went through the difficulty of getting an engineering degree.

She hadn't been able to stay in touch with the other girls from CATZ; all of them had dropped off the radar. Morana and Zero hadn't shown themselves at all (rather surprising considering Morana's penchant for bloodshed and Zero's reputation as a sniper/assassin-for-hire). Sta and Tic had likewise vanished, though the duo had always been an enigma and probably had gone back to wherever they'd originally come from. Nano had actually gone to work for the government, involving herself in some kind of super secret agency devoted to 'cyber security' and 'proactive intelligence gathering;' she'd sent Erika (as Echo) a specially encoded message saying just that (Erika suspected that she missed Morana and was trying to find the blood-thirsty girl). Sighing, she picked at her food and wondered just how her old friends were _really_ doing.

_Zero_

Zero was waiting in the lobby of a glass-enclosed skyscraper. She was dressed in a conservatively-cut red pantsuit with a dark green blouse and dress shoes (not heels) of the same color. Her pale gray hair, which she'd grown out to halfway down her back, was pulled back into a ponytail that kept it out of the way - but in a stylish manner. On her lap was a black briefcase, though it didn't contain a weapon of any sort; no hidden guns or swords, no bombs, nor was it a specially-designed assault rifle compartmentalized into a briefcase. She kept her unique eyes hidden behind a pair polarized wrap-around sunglasses that impeded her vision not at all but prevented others from seeing them. A slight smile creased the twenty-three year old's face as a nervous-looking young man walked up to her and said, "Miss Ciphra? The chairman will see you now." Nodding to him, she stood up and followed the man to a bank of elevators. The name he'd called her, Ciphra, was actually the Latin word for 'zero;' a clever and obvious ploy to disguise her name that nevertheless worked (after all, few people know Latin, and fewer still would make the connection between 'Zero' and 'Miss Ciphra').

"Welcome, Miss Ciphra," the chairman said as she walked into his office. "Please," he went on, "sit down." Nodding to him graciously, she sat in the indicated chair and set her briefcase beside it.

"Let us dispense with the pleasantries, Mister Chairman," Zero said, "and move right to business. We received word that you are looking for someone to 'handle' a difficult 'business venture' in a discreet manner."

"You do get right to the point, Miss Ciphra," the gray-haired man said with a slightly nervous chuckle. "Nevertheless, you are correct."

"Do not state the obvious. It gets tedious."

"Of course, of course. Now, I am aware of the cost you and your employer charge for such services, and I will be able to make the payments."

"I have the contracts already drawn up," Zero told him. "They are non-negotiable, non-alterable, and non-refundable. Should you attempt to break your contract in any way, form, or manner, the penalties will _not_ be to your liking. Clear?"

"As the glass on this building," the chairman said with a nervous swallow.

"Good." Zero reached down and pulled the contracts out of the briefcase. "If you fail to make a payment on time, you will receive a one-time visit as a warning. If a second payment is not received, an 'adjustment' shall be made." The slight emphasis on _adjustment_ made it clear just what it meant. After he'd signed the contracts, with only a little hesitation, she slipped them back into the briefcase and stood, holding out a hand. When he'd shaken it, she said, "The Outfit is grateful to have your business."

_Sta and Tic_

Contrary to what their former teammates might believe, Sta and Tic hadn't 'gone home;' rather, they'd merely gone to where they wouldn't be noticed. Surprisingly, the suggestion to 'hide' in the Australian Outback had been Tic's idea. Because of their unique abilities, they didn't have to worry about power - or even satellite reception. They simply bought storage batteries and a generator, along with the components to make a satellite receiver and hooked everything up. Tic would recharge the batteries before going to sleep, and Sta would use her electromagnetism to 'pull in' satellite signals via their hook-up. There really wasn't much call for super heroes in 'the land down under' so they contented themselves with helping out in natural disasters. They actually did earn an income of sorts; Tic turned out to be pretty adept at woodcarving while Sta, naturally, had a gift for painting (she painted Tic's carvings as well as affordable paintings for homes and offices). It was enough to keep them supplied with food and other necessities.

But while they found this life rather relaxing and enjoyable, they knew that - one day - trouble would come back.

_Nano_

Nano was in the unit's headquarters van, right now serving as the strike team's secure and virtually unhackable communications link and mission coordinator. The unit was, right now, running a counter-intelligence operation in the middle of a major American city; their parent organization had received a tip-off about an active terrorist network in the area and had mobilized one of their elite teams to handle the situation. Every single member of the organization's strike teams had a reason for joining, a reason that the organization had promised to help them with.

For Nano, her reason was to find Morana. She knew, without a doubt, that the artificially-created organic girl had been responsible for that massacre at the 'defense technologies research facility' five years ago; but after that there hadn't been a peep out of her. The organization had agreed to help her in return for a period of employment, and she had agreed to their terms. Though she was helping with this counter-terror/-intelligence op, her primary role right now was the investigation and analysis of any and all information regarding a new group or organization calling itself 'The Outfit.' They weren't a terrorist organization, nor anything even related to that; what little information they had managed to get seemed to point to The Outfit being a mercenary group that hired out for various activities ranging from 'proactive industrial espionage' to 'tactical small unit combat'. They appeared to work solely for money, but were selective about whose money they took. Nano had a feeling that Morana was connected to The Outfit in some way.

Blinking her eyes for a moment, she returned her full attention to the situation at hand.

_Morana_

Morana finished her tai chi exercises and sat down at her desk. She had, over the past three and a half years, taken to wearing lightweight clothes when she worked out; usually loose capris-style pants and a sleeveless shirt; though she still cared for her swords naked (_that_ would never change). Turning on her computer, she watched as the holographic screen floated into place in the middle of the desk. She saw a blinking envelope icon and touched it, watching as it expanded into an email from Zero. The message was only two words: _Contract accepted_. With a smile, she deleted the message and looked through her availability list. _Looks like Team 3 is up next_, she thought, selecting the four-man team's icon, automatically sending an activation message to each member's email account. Though just twenty-one now, Morana was the nominal 'leader' of the ghostly mercenary organization known as The Outfit. In just two years, they had developed a reputation for discretion and success. And for ruthlessness; any time one of their clients tried to weasel out of the contract, either Morana or Zero had eliminated the 'problem' quickly and personally. The message had swiftly spread: _Don't cheat The Outfit_. Between the two of them, Zero (aka 'Miss Ciphra') was the 'public face' of The Outfit; Morana ran things from 'behind the scenes.' She did work a few ops herself every now and then, but not as many as she was capable of doing. The reason for that walked into her office and drew a smile from her, a genuine and loving smile which her friends would _never_ have believed her capable of. She got up from behind her desk, the holo-screen automatically vanishing as she left. She walked up to the little girl and easily picked her up. Hugging her close, she said, "Vesna, is everything alright?"

"Yes, mommy," the four-year-old girl said, hugging her mom tightly. "I just wanted to see you."

"Well, I'm done working, so let's go play," Morana told her daughter.

"Can I play with the ka-ta-na today?" she said, enunciating the sword.

"You know you have to wait until you're ten."

"Am I ten now?"

"Not yet," she replied with a chuckle. "We'll stick with the daggers for now."

**Author's Note:** Okay, now, just who did I shock?


End file.
